Britain's only matador back in ring after surgery

By Jon Nazca

VILLANUEVA DE LA CONCEPTION, Spain (Reuters) - A grandfather in his 60s made his comeback as Britain's only matador at a bullfight in Spain on Sunday, less than a year after a quadruple heart bypass and a knee replacement.

Frank Evans, known as "El Ingles", was forced to hang up his cape three years ago because of an old injury, but on Sunday made a triumphant return with support from a new titanium knee joint at a charity bullfight in Villanueva de la Concepcion, a village in the mountains above Malaga, southern Spain.

The balding pensioner, who turned 66 on Monday, looked a little slower and stiffer than younger rival fighters as he swished his cape under the fierce Andalusian sun.

But, cheered on by hundreds of villagers curious at the sight of an Englishman in the ring, Evans executed elegant passes and killed the 420 kg (92O lb) bull with a single sword thrust, earning him the highest prize a matador can receive -- the bull's severed ears.

"It was nice to get it out of the way and now I hope those who didn't think I could do it will ease off a bit," he said in a telephone interview afterwards.

Evans, the son of a Manchester butcher, was inspired to become a bullfighter after reading about Britain's first matador Vincent Hitchcock as a teenager.

He enrolled in a bullfighting school in Valencia and, after surviving the skepticism of his teachers, fought his first corrida in 1966 thanks to a mix-up by a booking agent who mistook him for another fighter.

Back home, he practiced sword thrusts by stabbing a bail of hay on a supermarket trolley with a pair of horns mounted at the front and in 1991 he became a fully-fledged "matador de toro", who faces the biggest bulls.