Chris Eubank: The Autobiography. Chris Eubank

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СКАЧАТЬ a few seconds I was twenty yards or so ahead. After all, I was running six miles every morning before I even opened the gym door, so these fellows were never going to keep up.

      At this point I banged past a middle-aged man who then joined the chase. He was wearing one of those army jumpers with shoulder and elbow patches. By now, though, I had built up a good speed and dived through a subway, then dashed up this long flight of steps to bring me back to street level, deliberately choosing the steps instead of the ramp to make their chase tougher. I can picture to this day the sight of this man, panting desperately for breath, face all reddened and flushed, skidding through the subway and coming to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. He looked up and I was standing there, grinning at the top of the steps. My heart at this point was barely beating above resting rate. This guy chasing me was so exhausted he was barely conscious.

      We stood there looking at each other waiting for the next move, then I heard another officer shouting, ‘Don’t stop! Get him!’ I calmly reached down and took off each shoe, held them up in the air triumphantly, before turning around and setting off at speed towards a street full of market stalls. As I weaved my way through the stalls, out of danger at last, I could just hear a faint voice shouting, ‘Thief, stop!’ I was so fit they never stood a chance. Once I was sure I was safe, I caught the train back to my friend’s house and slept there for the night.

      I was awakened at 7.45am the next morning by a knock on the door. I heard someone’s voice saying, ‘Is Christopher here?’ before being let in. It was the police – no, it was the ‘cozzers’. I know cozzers is a generic term for the police but real cozzers only come from certain police stations. This particular cozzer was like a huge bulldog, 6’ 4” with a furious scowl. He didn’t care very much for me because I was wrong. He came into the front room where I was sleeping and said, ‘Christopher, get up now.’ I was half-asleep, squinting through my eyelids, saying, ‘What? What are you talking about?’

      I got up and stood in front of him wearing only my socks and underpants. My clothes were hanging up in the wardrobe but I knew I had to delay getting fully dressed because at that point they would cuff me, especially after my escapology of the day before. I couldn’t believe my bad luck; this chase had been going on for two days now!

      I surveyed the terrain and noticed that the sash window was too near the officer to offer a realistic chance of escape. So I asked him if I could brush my teeth. He wasn’t stupid, so he followed me into the bathroom where they knew there was a window. They watched me brush my teeth. I had acne at this time, so while I was standing at the mirror, I squeezed a pimple and the pus and a little streak of blood started running down my face. I turned to the disgusted officer and said, ‘I’ve got to clean myself up.’

      ‘Fine,’ came the reply, and he continued to stand there.

      ‘Can I use the toilet now?’ I asked.

      ‘Sure,’ came the reply but he still stood there.

      ‘Can I have some privacy in here?’

      ‘No.’

      So he stood there and watched me use the toilet. Or rather, pretend to use the toilet. After a short while, I played out the charade, did a fake number two, used the toilet paper and so on, pulled up my underpants then came back into the front room.

      ‘Right, officer, I’ll get changed now.’

      He was standing leaning against the door frame and had started talking to another officer and a girl who lived in the house. Alternately he would talk to them then turn around to keep an eye on me. Then, for one moment too long, he had his head turned away from me. That was all the opportunity I needed. Like a flash I was through the sash window, in only my socks (silk, mind you) and underpants.

      The estates around Walworth Road were real rabbit warrens so it was easy for me to lose anybody who would take up the chase. However, it was cold and drizzling so I was absolutely freezing. As I ran into one courtyard, this little kid, about 13, saw me and looked surprised to see someone wearing only socks and underpants running around at 8.15am in the rain. I went up to his front door and said, ‘I’m being chased by the police, I need a coat, I’ll bring it back.’ There was absolute sincerity in my eyes. I could see his brain thinking it over, while I’m standing there shivering, half-expecting the cozzers to come round the corner at any moment. Eventually, after what seemed like an age, he timidly said, ‘I’ll just go and ask my dad.’ As soon as he was out of the hallway, I grabbed a coat off a hook and ran off. Poor kid. I eventually made my way to Nasty’s flat and finally, after two days of being on the run, I was safe.

      I don’t have a problem with people who steal things. Well, don’t get me wrong, stealing is wrong but shoplifting at the time was justifiable to me, I was a kid. Anyway, I knew that the mark-up on some of those clothes was 400%, so I just thought of it as stealing from the rich to give to the poor, namely me. People need to make a living, it’s nothing personal, it’s not you they want, it’s just the money. However, if someone steals and hurts a person in the process, that is totally unacceptable, and against everything I stand for. I abhor that.

      After Maximo I trained myself. When I started working in the Jack Pook gym in Brighton, my brothers, who were boxing themselves, introduced me to a trainer called Ronnie Davies. He had been Southern Area Lightweight Champion himself in 1967, so he knew the business. I was constantly in the gym, but Ronnie worked as a site manager for a building company. He toiled a long day on site and would come to the gym, back bent double, and work with me. I used to say, ‘Come in from the cold, stick with me, I’ll take you to the top.’ And I did.

      He said to me, ‘You only need to train four days a week.’ I replied, ‘You can come in four days a week, I will be here seven days a week.’ Ronnie wasn’t training me. I knew how to box, all I needed was someone to be my eye outside of the ring, because there are certain things you can’t see. I would come back to my corner and his perception and observation would be very enlightening, because he could see things I was too involved to catch.

      Ronnie was also a brilliant bodyguard. By that, I don’t mean personal security, rather a man who knew which fighters were dangerous, which ones were under-rated or over-hyped. Plus, he could protect me from the litany of problems, situations and liabilities that boxing exposed me to. There would be so many people trying to get to me, hangers-on, charlatans and takers, and Ronnie had a faultless radar for that, he sniffed them out immediately. He always watched my back against things like that. He was a very good companion. I will always love Ronnie Davies.

      Ronnie also made me laugh. His humour was so cutting, so dry, that he would regularly have me roaring. Over the years, we had so many hilarious times, nights when our sides would ache from laughing, where we would fall asleep still sniggering. One time, we were planning to fly back from Portugal to Heathrow via Dusseldorf, but I had lost both the passports at the airport in the Algarve. So we had to disembark in Germany and wait overnight for the passports. I have never laughed so much as that night. From the moment we walked off that plane, we cried with laughter.

      We went for a walk around the streets of Dusseldorf and I was telling Ronnie, ‘You mustn’t eat pork.’ I have always had a love-hate relationship with pork and had recently been listening to certain people who would not touch it. I was saying, ‘It is not a clean meat, Ronnie, never touch it again, if you know what’s good for you!’ He was laughing at me about it but I really wanted to win him round to not eating pork. They’d offered us pork on the plane and I was saying, ‘This is a very dangerous meat, Ronnie.’ As we were strolling past all these shops and restaurant windows, we stopped near one which had this big spit roast of pork going around on a skewer, crackling skin and juices sizzling. I walked in, got their attention and, said, ‘Yes, sell me all that’s left of the pig!’ Ronnie was doubled over in stitches.

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