@SweetD001
Ex-EBU champ
I WAS pleased to start 2023 by discovering that there was a play called On the Ropes showing at the Park Theatre in North London. The production is the biographical tale of Vernon Vanriel, the maverick light-welterweight boxer from Tottenham who was popular in the 1970s and 80s, for his unorthodox fighting style, but who became better known for a treacherous period in his life as a victim of the Windrush scandal caused by the government’s much-maligned ‘hostile environment’ policy.
Despite living in in the UK from the age of six, Vernon was denied entrance into the country after returning from a trip to Jamaica, unaware that being outside the UK for two years or more continuous years meant he would lose his right to remain indefinitely. That ruling rendered him virtually stateless for 13
