SPORTING PASSIONS MATTHEW MACKLIN (Boxer):MATTHEW MACKLIN defeated Finland's Amin Asikainen at the Manchester Velodrome on September 25th to win the vacant European middleweight title.

Promoted by Meath’s Brian Peters and raised in Birmingham by Irish parents, Macklin was also a talented hurler with Tipperary and played at underage levels with the county before concentrating on boxing.

In March, he ended rival Wayne Elcock’s British title reign with a third round KO, and then in September he followed that up with a sensational, first-round destruction of former European champ Asikainen. The impressive double has seen Macklin shoot up the world rankings and he is now rated fourth with the WBO, fifth with the IBF and eighth with the WBC.

“My mum is from Tipperary and my dad is from Roscommon. In our house Gaelic games were the big sports when I was growing up and I suppose dad generated the interest in me from an early age.

“Every Sunday in Birmingham I headed off with my dad and played at underage levels. Sean McDermotts was my club from a young age and dad was heavily involved in everything there.

“In fact I had started playing hurling and football even before I began to play soccer.

“I suppose that would have been a bit unusual for a boy growing up in Birmingham. But I’ve always considered myself to be Irish and didn’t play soccer until I was seven or eight years old.

“I’d always hit around with a hurley from the age of two or three, and when I was five I could do things with a hurley stick that kids in Ireland couldn’t even do.

“Every summer holidays I’d go over to Ireland and down to Four Roads (Roscommon), and at Christmas too, so it felt very natural for me to be playing football or hurling as we were part of a very close-knit Irish community.

“Then one summer, when my dad was working on the Channel Tunnel, we went down to Dover for the summer holidays and stayed in this caravan park close to where he was located on the tunnel. The people who were next door to us in the same park came from Ballingarry in Tipperary.

“They had a son who was mad into hurling and my dad, even though Roscommon is a football place, was also interested because Four Roads is a big hurling area.

“I made friends there with Keith and we soon became best friends.

“Whenever I went over to Thurles during the summer holidays, I’d stay six or seven weeks and spend time in Ballingarry, where I also played hurling with the club. I was selected for the Tony Forristal Under-14 tournament for Tipperary at wing back, but I had already played for Warwickshire that year in the Féile na nGael and you couldn’t play for two counties in the one year, so that was the end of that.

“Even in England all the videos of the big matches in Ireland used to be sent over to us and we’d watch all of them. I marked Eoin Kelly at under-12 and under-14s and we remain really close friends now.

“Eoin now is one of the big names on the Tipperary senior team. He’s been a fantastic player with them for years. Other big names in Tipperary hurling like John Leahy and Nicky English were heroes of mine when I was growing up in the 90s. I know Leahy well.

“In 1997 I played under-16 for Tipperary. It was like a tournament format over a weekend and we played against three teams. We met Cork down in Riverstick as well as Limerick and Waterford and I’ve great memories of it. I came over to Ireland for the Munster final this year and I still try to watch as much as I can.

“I couldn’t get to the All-Ireland final this year because I was training for the European title fight and I wanted to stick to my normal routine in the gym. Otherwise I would have come over.

“We can see all of the matches on RTÉ anyway, so it is no problem keeping in touch with what is going on.

“Also I still have a lot of family around Four Roads as my dad’s two sisters live there and my grandmother, Margaret. I know a lot of people in Ireland, most of them involved with GAA, and now also boxing as well.”

In conversation with Johnny Watterson