SPORTING PASSION - PAT FLYNN:Pat Flynn, who trained the winner of this year's Galway Hurdle, Bahrain Storm, talks about his passion for boxing with Brian O'Connor.

“ONE OF my earliest memories of boxing is going to school on the back of a tractor and trailer, picking up churns for the creamery on the way, and hearing one old man asking us “do you think Clay will beat Liston tonight?”

That was 1964 when Muhammad Ali was still Cassius Clay. I was seven and I remember my father and myself listened to the fight that night. My father loved boxing. I used to hear him talking about it all the time. Maybe that’s why I grew to love the sport so much.

There was also a man who worked on the farm, Martin McGrath was his name, and he’d been a tough man in his younger days – used to go to fairs for unofficial fights. He had me practising on bales of straw like they were punchbags.

Then when I left school I started boxing myself. I started out in a club in Crehana near Carrick-On-Suir.

Seán Kelly the cyclist used to be in there too. We’d be boxing on one side and he’d be training on the other. We used to run together. He was deadly serious but we never really trained in earnest.

I joined the Sacred Heart club in Waterford after that, had over 40 fights in every kind of dingy ballroom, pub and club you can imagine. I won a good few of them, and managed to win a Munster title. I was a light heavyweight and fought in the National Stadium once.

It was probably a mistake as I was up against a fella who’d had something like 350 fights, but I remember climbing in through the ropes and the boxer from the previous fight wishing me luck as he was getting out.

He was Joe Christle and years later I trained eight winners for Joe and his brothers, Terry and Mel.

Joe told me later that he loved boxing fellas from down the country. The lads would be tough as nails but they hadn’t been really coached properly and Joe could see a punch coming from 10 miles away.

Coaching is so important. The Dublin lads had that and they could see a left hook coming from around Naas!

Horses are my first love, and my livelihood, but even now I love a good fight. Even if it was on a football field, I’d watch it. My son Mark and I were at the Steve Collins-Chris Eubank fight in Cork – ringside seats thanks to Mel Christle – and it was a wonderfully exciting fight, the hairs on my neck were standing up.

I reckon the two best punches I’ve seen include Manny Pacquiao’s left hook to Ricky Hatton recently. That was incredible. The guy was absolutely out for the count. And I’ve seen the tape of Rocky Marciano’s right cross to Jersey Joe Walcott in 1952: a fabulous punch, it was like a humane killer the way Walcott went down.

I love the history of boxing. I had an Australian owner here and all we did when he visited was talk about fighters. He told me about Les Darcy, who was born in 1895 and whose grandfather was from Tipperary, and he’s a legend in Australia.

Darcy went to fight in America and died at only 22 from an infected tooth but Australians still say the Americans killed both Phar Lap and Darcy.

I remember asking the Waterford football coach John Kiely – who knows everything about sport – a question I was sure he wouldn’t get.

It was about the 1896 fight between Tom Sharkey, who was from Dundalk, and Bob Fitzsimons, and I asked John who refereed it. He knew it too: Wyatt Earp, the famous gunfighter.

My three sons and myself will watch the big fights on telly and there won’t even be a blink between the four of us. We would love to see Manny Pacquiao, the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world right now, against Floyd Mayweather.

Joe Calzaghe is a serious fighter as well over the last few years but of course Ali is a hero to all fight fans.

I would watch all sports but there is something special about boxing. I actually have a picture in the house here of Ali fighting Floyd Patterson and it’s signed by Patterson: “To my friend Pat Flynn – wishing you health and happiness.”

I also had a letter from Floyd, but I lost it, and in it he pointed out how in the picture he was practically having to jump up to punch Ali. And on the night it was a rare punch too.