In this extract from his new book, My Autobiography, legendary Irish boxer Carl Frampton reflects on his journey into the sport
● UPDATES CARL FRAMPTON
They needn’t have worried. I never had any fear in the gym. Billy (McKee, was founder and coach at Midland ABC) always used to say it, how game I was, how I never thought twice before getting in the ring with another kid. Others asked a lot of questions before sparring and things like that. Who is the other kid? What age is he? What weight is he? How many fights has he had? I never cared. I was happy to get in with whoever and as it was tough to find anyone as small as me it always tended to be a bigger, older, stronger fella in the opposite corner.
I wasn’t a wee hard man on the street. If anything, I was too shy and at that age probably preferred to back down from physical confrontation rather than seek it out. I was never bullied or anything, but like any other kid, you got into scraps. And maybe being so small I could have become more of a target. I think that might have been part of my ma’s thinking in sending me to the boxing. But in the club every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I’d move about the ring with all the lads in the area anywhere near my age and it only took a round or two before they realised they’d bitten off more than they could chew if they started on me.
The other thing Billy said was that as well as having the heart and balls to get in the ring and get punched in the face without running away crying, he could see from the off I was an athlete. The reflexes, the agility, the flexibility, the coordination, they were all there. With a bit of natural strength as well they saw from the start that I had what was required to do well in a physical sport, and I was definitely a kid they could work with and develop.
Because of all that, they paid me more attention than the others from that first week. Both Billy and Joe (Farrell, was coach at Midland ABC and ex-army) worked with me in those early days, although I was always closer to Billy. Joe was a very intimidating figure back then. I caught up with him in my teens just before he passed away and he’d calmed down a lot by then, but when I was first in the gym there was definitely a bit of a fear of Joe. He was an ex-army man, fought in Korea I think, and liked things very regimented. He didn’t like music in the gym during training and I remember him smashing CD players off the wall. He didn’t like us drinking water for some reason either. We weren’t allowed to bring our own bottle and instead he filled an empty milk carton with water which we all had to share. He didn’t even let us swallow the water, but instead had us spit i
