British matador Frank Evans steps back into the ring at 67

Timesonline

Graham Keeley

In just under a fortnight a 67-year-old British man will defy his rickety knees and fragile heart to make one of sport’s more unlikely comebacks. At an age when most people are looking forward to the quiet life, Frank Evans will walk into a bullring in southern Spain to face 500lb of angry beef.

Mr Evans — or El Ingles, as he is known in matador circles — will don the traje de luz, or suit of lights, for the first time since 2005 for a fight in Benalmadena, near Malaga, on August 30.

The former butcher from Salford, who used to practise his sword thrusts in the park on a supermarket trolley full of hay, is undaunted by a knee operation, a quadruple heart bypass and fears about his age.

“The bull doesn’t ask to see my birth certificate,” he said.

“My age doesn’t make any difference. I can do sprints and you are as old as you feel inside,” he told The Times. “It is not about age in this game, it is about wits. The matador has to outwit the bull, who has all the power.”

Mr Evans cuts a novel figure in the Latin world of los toros, dominated by young, glamorous matadors who enjoy rock-star status. But he says that his nationality has won him respect among Spanish bullfighting aficionados.

A knee injury picked up in a game of rugby four years ago forced him to hang up his cape; his comeback coincides with the publication of his autobiography, The Last British Matador, this month.

“I wanted to tell the funny stories that happened to me along the way, not how many bulls I killed,” he said.

“Like when my friends and I had to steal back half a million pesetas because a manager would not pay me for my fights. Or when a friend stuffed loads of newspapers down my crotch to make me look better at a fight and we got caught.”

Mr Evans, who has been gored six times, caught his fever for the bulls during a trip to Spain in 1963. He was inspired to try it for himself after reading the story of Vincent Hitchcock, the first British bullfighter, who fought in the 1950s.

After spending two years at a bullfighting school in Valencia he notched up his first kill at Montpellier, in France,in 1966.

However, a shortage of money and equipment forced him into early retirement. He returned to Salford and a kitchen business.

But he could not shake off his passion for the bulls and took every chance to return to Spain to fight.

Finally, in 1991, at the age of 49, he came face-to-face with a mature bull as a fully fledged matador. At a point in his life when most bullfighters call it a day, Mr Evans was fighting in Spain, France and Mexico; in 2003 he achieved a career-high ranking of 63.

Two years later doctors ordered him to give up after the operation on his knee. He managed to recover, however, and the ring beckoned once more. “I could not resist it. I am physically fit enough despite the operation so I was offered another professional fight.”

He rejects criticism he gets in his home country for participating in bullfighting. “I don’t accept it is cruel,” he said. “The way animals are kept before they are slaughtered is worse.

“But I do think we should try to stop incompetent bullfighters who fail to kill bulls with one sword thrust.”

Posted by Wintermute at August 22, 2009 08:57 AM