CELEBRITY FANS/ULICK O'CONNOR, WRITER 81 BOXING:The dignity of those he met during an unbeaten career of 25 fights made a lasting impression on the renowned Dubliner

What weight class were you?

I was a welterweight.

What style of boxer were you?

I was very much a straight left. Sugar Ray Robinson was the person I modelled myself on. I used to watch footage of him on film reels. He had a wonderful left. I practised all the time with it. I never practised with my right; although it was always the right that knocked them out. The reason was that the damage would be done with a very hard left. They’d be slightly upset and the right would come over automatically.

Did you get knocked down yourself?

No. I was never beaten in 25 fights. I still hold the record for the fastest knockout at The Stadium – four seconds. I was a British Universities Champion.

Where did you train?

I used to go round to all the boxing gyms, which were in the heart of the city then, asking for a spar. They had bred an extraordinary tradition of boxers at that time. There were three or four European champions there – Jimmy Ingle and Paddy Dowdall. They were in these clubs which were mostly rooms at the bottom of not-quite tenement houses. St Andrew’s had their boxing club in a basement on Cuffe Street. There was another one on Gardiner Street.

That’s really how I picked up most of my boxing positions. Then I used to practise very hard. I used to practise on the train as it was going along if the carriage was empty. In those days, they’d small carriages that could only hold eight or nine people.

Did your mother approve of you boxing?

I come from a sporting family. My mother was captain of the UCD hockey team. My father was captain of the rugby, cricket and tennis teams. We didn’t talk sport at the table but it was taken as natural.

Has boxing changed since the 1940s?

It hasn’t. The basis of modern boxing is straight punching. The left is the lead one because it’s protecting you all the time as well. And the footwork is exactly the same. The most important thing about any punch is the movement of the feet.

Why did you stop boxing?

I had too many things really. I had rugby, athletics and cricket. Boxing was the easiest to give up. I felt I’d gone through it. There’s a nervous strain to boxing. I’d always be very nervous in the ring beforehand; not afraid of getting beaten or anything, or getting hurt, but you’re totally alone. You have absolute survival in your mind. Despite that, the wonderful thing about it is that it is the cleanest sport that I ever took part in. I found more sportsmen in boxing than anywhere else.

It’s a paradox, isn’t it?

It is. Another thing, my temperament is not the typical boxing one. I’m an extrovert, but most of the really good boxers are terribly quiet guys. That doesn’t apply to Ali, obviously.

You met him a few times. Do you remember much about any of the encounters?

I remember being on a plane once from Chicago to New York. I was travelling ordinary class; he was in first class, with a travelling companion, a black gentleman with a broken nose.

He passed by and said he’d come down to my seat in a while. I was surprised when he did, 15 minutes later. He wanted to talk “poetry”. I showed him a book of my poems. He inspected it with care, placing an enormous thumb and finger on the pages to span alternate lines. “I like these ’cos they rhyme,” he announced finally.

Then, to my horror, he began to recite his own verse, declaiming it in a singsong Southern accent, looking ahead, but watching carefully out of the corner of his eye to see how I was reacting.

He came to one and the words were something like: “The same road that connects two souls together/When stretched becomes a path to God.”

And they were good lines so I was able to say that with sincerity, which got me off that hook.

There was a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce to meet him outside. Ali offered me a ride to town. He introduced me to his broken-nosed companion, who turned out to be Kid Gavilan, former welterweight champion of the world and master of the “Bolo” punch. The Kid was down and out, broke in Alabama when Ali discovered him and picked up the tab.

What was the funniest thing you experienced ringside?

I remember Ali was fighting in Croke Park in the open air, a terrible fight against Al “Blue” Lewis. Awful. Awful. It was a frightful affair, so slow that in the sixth round a Dublin voice was heard throughout the stadium, in the perfect pitch that these hecklers have: “Hit him, you have the wind behind you.”

In conversation with Richard Fitzpatrick.