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I never started in boxing to be a British champion or a world champion. There are loads of world champions in Britain, and if you mention them to someone out there on the street, nobody knows who they are.

My father was an army champion boxer... in the British army. And so he loved boxing and talked it up as a sport. But then when my brother and I were beating the crap out of each other, he was always trying to tone it down. But I am a fan of boxing.

Since I was a boy of five or six, I had it in my mind I would be a world boxing champion.

No, I've never competed. I did, however, train in a boxing gym with a good coach beginning in 1993. I'd been writing about the sport for a dozen years by then and wanted to know what boxers endured, what it felt like. I was too old to compete when I started, but I sparred enough to get a taste.

I ran into a couple of guys who were boxers. They talked me into working out at their gym. I became obsessed with boxing and the idea of becoming a champion.

Boxing is a dying sport, really. Years ago, the world heavyweight champion could be said to have reached the highest pinnacle of sport. Even in this country, boxers were heroes. Think of Henry Cooper and Frank Bruno.

I grew up in a gym in Miami, the one where Muhammad Ali trained. I had 142 amateur fights and lost three.

When I was 15 years old, I left school and became a professional boxer.

Before the start of the '76 Olympics, I'd had 160 amateur fights. I won 155 and lost five.