Amir Khan - Amir Khan: A Boy from Bolton: My Story

AMIR KHAN

First published in Great Britain 2006

Copyright Amir Khan

This electronic edition published 2009 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

The right of Amir Khan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

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eISBN: 978-1-40880-721-7

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I dedicate this book to my late grandad and grandma, Lall Khan and Iqbal Begum, who made everything possible; and to my mum, dad, brother Haroon, sisters Tabinda and Mariyah, and my close family.

CONTENTS

I've seen a lot of young boxers in my day. In the past fifteen years working full time as a TV commentator for Sky and ITV, I've seen every hot prospect to emerge on both sides of the Atlantic. Amir Khan is as good as any I've witnessed, as good as Floyd Mayweather jnr, as good as Oscar De La Hoya. I don't say that lightly. I don't want to make Amir's job harder than it already is by damning him with faint praise, especially these days when the transition from amateur to pro is as hard as it has ever been. More and more the amateur and professional codes are becoming almost separate disciplines. Sure, they take place in a ring and the boxers wear shorts, but that's about the only similarity in the twenty-first century. Not so long ago an Olympic medal was almost a guarantee of success as a pro. Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard, Lennox Lewis all went on to win world titles. Nowadays most major amateur crowns are won by tall, rangy boxers, often southpaws. That's no accident. The amateur code, with its head guards, bigger, cushioned gloves, shorter rounds and questionable scoring system, promotes a kind of in-and-out technique. You tap and go. Boxers become almost institutionalised, making the crossover to fighting for three minutes a round on the inside within punching distance wearing smaller gloves harder than ever to make. Witness the struggle that Audley Harrison has endured. Amir is exceptional. I won Commonwealth gold at seventeen. That was hard enough. To challenge one of the greatest amateur boxers of all time, a Cuban double Olympic gold medallist, and push him all the way in an Olympic final defied belief. To then come back from that and beat Mario Kindelan in what turned out to be the last amateur bout for both demonstrated the vast depth of Amir's talent.

To get on in this game you need many qualities. Uppermost is attitude. Without the right approach a boxer cannot hope to sustain the kind of commitment required to train hard and prepare properly for fights in a long career. They call boxing the truth game. If there are any weaknesses or corners cut, it finds you out in the end. Amir's attitude is first class. He loves to fight, and he listens. Six months into his pro career I went up to Manchester to film a session with Amir at Oliver Harrison's gym in Salford. We did some pad work, hit the speed ball, the usual stuff, then when the cameras had gone, we sat on the ring apron and had a chat. There were only a few people in the gym: me, Amir, Oliver and Steve Foster jnr. We talked boxing. You would not have known Amir was there. He never said a word. As an amateur, he had achieved more than any of us. Here, he was just soaking up everything, tucking it away to measure against his own experience down the road.

There are no guarantees in sport. But if any fighter has a chance it is Amir, in my opinion the most important British boxer to emerge in a generation. He has all the attributes required to scale the highest peaks as a pro, just as he did as an amateur, to go on to achieve his ambition of a world title. But his appeal is broader than sport. He has universal appeal, crossing over so many boundaries, whether it be race, religion or creed. The present political climate, at home and abroad, has placed Amir, a boy from Bolton, in a delicate position. Yet he does honour to his Pakistani roots and his Muslim faith while at the same time being as British as any in this sceptred isle. I know a little about upheaval in times of political turbulence. I had to fight during one of the most troubled times in Irish history. As an Irish Catholic from a town in the Republic I fought for the British title. I married a Protestant at a time when people were losing their lives as a result of their religious orientation, just as they are now in Amir's era. It wasn't my fault. It's not Amir's. He has handled the situation with honesty, integrity and sincerity, displaying a measure of maturity way beyond his years. He did not acquire those qualities overnight. Like me, he grew up in a loving family, among genuine people. The result is a humble boy devoid of artifice. He has every reason to shout from the rooftops, yet he remains free of arrogance. His humility is refreshing in the age of the sporting megastar. This is what makes Amir so special.

The temptations are many for today's sporting heroes. You need to stay true to yourself. That takes discipline, hard work and character, qualities that Amir has in abundance.

Think about all those eight-, nine-, ten-year-olds who watched Amir win the silver medal in Athens. They were already connected to him when he switched codes to join the professional ranks. He will be part of their lives for ever as a consequence of that remarkable Olympic odyssey. As a paid-up member of the boxing community, I'm honoured to say that Amir Khan will for ever be a part of my life too.

Barry McGuigan
Faversham, Kent
August 2006

I'm sitting on the sofa in the front room of the new house. The extension has just been finished. It's a bungalow so it gives us a bit more space. My chest is aching from the gym session in the morning. Oliver, my trainer, has introduced some strength work. He had me bench-pressing 40 kilos for fifty reps. And that was just the warm-up.

I'm flicking through a car magazine. I like the look of the Mercedes CLR. My brother Haroon is watching the World Cup on TV with Taz, my uncle, and my dad. It's 15 June, England are playing Trinidad and Tobago. It's a rubbish match. Then Wayne Rooney starts walking up and down. He's about to make his World Cup debut seven weeks after breaking his foot. The papers have been talking about nothing else for weeks. It makes me smile. I am pleased for the lad. I've met him a couple of times. He seems like a nice guy. A couple of days earlier I was reading in one paper that I had been beaten as an amateur by Rooney's brother or cousin. I can't remember which. It wasn't true. I lost only nine times in the amateurs. I can remember the names of every opponent who beat me. There are none of the Rooney clan in that list. A lot of what is written about me in the papers isn't true. The sports stuff is fine, it's the other stuff that gets you, the girlfriends, the parties. I wish I had been out with half the girls I've been linked with. People can easily get the wrong impression. A friend of a friend's daughter asked him if I had a sister called Jemima. I'd been turned into the brother of Jemima Khan, the ex-wife of Imran. That's how mad it can get and one of the reasons I chose to write this book. People say I'm too young at nineteen to be writing an autobiography. They are absolutely right. This is not my autobiography. It is the first chapter in the story of my life.