In a familiar East End setting,Vijender shows heart and guts

As the powerfully built American hit out wildly at him,Vijender kept his guard up,and the grinding of his teeth could have pulverised stone.

Which was just as well,for the East End crowd knows its scraps,having been spectators at bouts of the rawest kind,at rings where photographers dont always turn up. This is a crowd that loves boxing,serious fans that adore the hard-working pugilist and frown at the showman.

It isnt likely therefore,that when Vijender faces Uzbekistans Abbos Atoev or when Manoj Kumar takes on the UK home boy Thomas Stalker the only ones watching would be Bollywood-loving NRIs and IT geeks of Canary Wharf.

Other famous arenas (at the Games) have had empty seats,but boxings filled up 10,000 seats every single bout of every single session, says Steve Lillis,longtime boxing correspondent and a pundit of the sport. The docks went away as other modes of transport came in. But thankfully,the kids still want to box.

This indeed,is a corner of London that understands the language of boxing better than most others. No place in the capital has a sturdier soul than the district of Canning Town,the original home of British boxing.

It is a rough neighbourhood,and a tough one too,described by Charles Dickens in 1857 as the place of refuge for offensive trade establishments turned out of town,an unsavoury patch of the great city where new streets of houses (had come up) without drains,roads,gas or pavements.

For the dockyard- and factory-labour here,boxing has for years provided recreation in grimy lives. Boxing clubs of West Ham United,Bethnal Green and Repton are all over a 100 years old,professional gyms where the rules of modern boxing were fleshed dot the district like a rash,and no place is too far away from the venerable York Hall,the sports spiritual home. Here at the dockyard,boxing is town centre,city hall,library and cafeteria rolled into one.

Even today,the area remains predominantly blue-collar,and Canning Town wallows in the bottom 5 per cent of most deprived areas in the UK. The docks died long ago,but the odd,heavy,labour jobs at the bottom of the employment ladder are living yet.

So too is the spirit of boxing. Recent immigrants many more Asians than Afro-Caribbean speaking with twisted cross-accents,are united in their attraction for the sport.

Twenty years ago it was unthinkable that an Asian would box here,now it is unthinkable that at least half of those at the gym wont be Asians. Even Indian immigrants,with no boxing traditions,picked it up as easily as anyone else, says Lillis.

Akaash Bhatia known as Kash the Bash from Wembley fought to great popular support here,displaying a derring-do,carefree style not dissimilar to Akhil Kumars.

The East was home to Terence Terry Spinks,the great working-class boxing hero who got Great Britain the flyweight gold at Melbourne 1956,and who sadly died only three months before the London Games opened. He (Spinks) would have understood Indias boxing roots better than most city folk from either country. He came from the docks,and like Vijender,combined both lives, says Lillis.