Tue, Mar 18, 2008 page18

• British matador relishes return to the ring at 65

  RESOLUTE A quadruple coronary bypass and an artificial knee have failed to deter pensioner Frank Evans of Salford, England, from planning a comeback

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  Frank "El Ingles" Evans claimed his first bull in Montpellier in 1966. After practising with a cape in a park in Salford, northern England, he went on to dazzle disbelieving Spanish crowds -- flummoxed at the sight of an Englishman in the ring -- before hanging up his cape three years ago on doctors' orders.

  Now aged 65 and recovering from a quadruple heart bypass operation and knee replacement, the pensioner is preparing a remarkable comeback. He said that he wished he'd never retired.

  "I made a mistake in retiring," he said. "It was forced upon me at the time because my knee had deteriorated to such an extent that I couldn't walk 10 yards without stumbling."

  But now, with a prosthetic knee and a series of medical results last week that suggest he is physically fit, he said he was relishing a return.

  "I'm a very optimistic person and I've always felt I'm going to be okay. People think: `He can't possibly think of going back into bullfighting after a heart bypass.' But all I can say to that is, what is the operation for?"

  "I just miss bullfighting," he added. "If you are a bullfighter, it isn't about the two hours you spend in a bullring on a Sunday afternoon. It's about the life you lead; you train every day, you go out into the countryside in these ranches where they breed the cattle and you practise with these young animals. The two hours in the ring is really just the ending."

  Evans, who hangs the stuffed head of his first kill as a full matador -- a 470kg bull named Langostino -- in his Salford home, spends most of his time in Marbella. He was the only native Englishman to achieve the matador de toros accolade.

  The son of a butcher from Manchester, who was inspired to bullfight after reading about British matador Vincent Charles Hitchcock, who fought in the 1940s and 1950s, also runs a bathroom fittings and property business.

  The news of his return will come as a shock to toros fans in Spain, where Evans, who gained full matador status, is well known. It is rare for bullfighters to continue fighting at such an age.

  What he had thought would be his final fight, in August 2005, was an emotional affair.

  In front of 80 fans from the UK, Evans was carried by fellow matadors from the Benalmadena ring, near Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol, and had his muleta, or pony tail, cut off.

  Juan Miguel Nunez, bullfighting critic for the news agency Efe, watched Evans dispatch his final, 495kg bull.

  "He looks like the perfect English gentleman, but he moves and thinks like a true torero," he wrote. "He has the scent of a torero."

  Evans said that while he may mark his return with a small charity corrida in Spain, he was negotiating contracts in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador -- the three bullfighting countries where he is yet to appear. His training schedule has already begun.

  "I've been doing all sorts of things that put your heart under stress," he said. "It's taken it very well."

  His only remaining impediment is a routine meeting with a doctor next month, but once he returns he claims he will "never retire."

  He admitted that the risk is greater the older he gets, but insisted he did not fear getting hurt.

  "When they do get hold of you, it is really a question of luck," he said.

  His worst injury was in 1983.

  "I got gored in the anus by a 15-year-old cow on a training ranch. The English press had a field day," Evans said.

  "The thought of serious injury or death never occurs," he added. "People in the industry never really dwell on it."
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