Chris Eubank: The Autobiography. Chris Eubank

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      That night we were sharing a twin room and we took this Haagen-Dazs ice-cream back for our night-cap but it took hours to polish off because we were laughing so much. Eventually I said, ‘Quiet now, Ronnie, we need to get some sleep.’ I switched the lights off but after about ten minutes he just burst out laughing again. Another twenty minutes later I went to get some water out of the mini bar, but dropped the bottle, so more hysterics. My sides were aching more than after any body shot! Ronnie took the monotony out of boxing – that scathing sense of humour sliced the tedious side out of my spartan life.

      The public perception was that Ronnie was my trainer, so as soon as I could, it made sense for me to have Ronnie styled to suit my team image. He had his hair cropped very closely and began wearing immaculate suits too, no more training bottoms. When I went on to win the title, I insisted he bought a Jaguar too – it was far more stylish and made for a better show. This was all part of the business plan. It was about showmanship. All my team had to be well turned out, not just Ronnie.

      I had hooked up with a local promoter by the name of Keith Miles and he started to help me get fights. I worked two jobs, in Debenhams and the other in Wimpy, because the money I was earning from fighting was simply not enough. However, this was very tiring and coupled with my obsessive training, I knew it could have detrimental effects on my performances. So I voiced my fears to Keith Miles, who agreed to pay me £120 a week as an allowance.

      It was at this time that I first met my future wife, Karron. Her sister, Phillipa, used to go out with my brother, Simon, one of the twins. One day I glanced through into his kitchen, saw Karron and thought, ‘What a beautiful woman. It would be a dream to be with a woman like that.’ But this was an impossibility. She was, and is, a gorgeous woman. What was I? Nothing. I had no self-esteem, other than my belief in my boxing ability. Back then, no one else knew that either. So, at first, to be with her was just an impossible wish.

      By coincidence, Karron had actually seen my seventh fight, against Winston Burnett at Hove Town Hall, back in March 1988. She’d come to watch with a male friend of hers. She wasn’t dating him but I still had not even spoken to her at this point. I had seen her since in a supermarket but couldn’t pluck up the courage to speak to her.

      I didn’t have a car as yet, so I used to walk everywhere. People began to notice me walking around Brighton, strutting even back then. Jack Pook used to train my brothers at the time and he said that I walked, ‘as if I owned the United Kingdom.’ I walked everywhere like that. I was always very, very proud, no matter how difficult my circumstances. One day I had walked about three miles into Brighton and as I was coming back past my brother’s house in Portland Road, I saw Karron talking to Peter. I was wearing a nice black cloth coat and went up to them and said, ‘Hi Peter,’ before turning to Karron and saying, ‘Hi, would you give me a lift please?’ She said, ‘Well, I am talking.’ I said, ‘Well, when you’ve finished, if you don’t mind, would you give me a lift back to my apartment? I’ll be in the 7–Eleven, buying a Lucozade.’ She looked stunning.

      Shortly after, she came and picked me up from the 7-Eleven in her old black, banged-up Fiat and took me to my apartment in Trafalgar Street. When we pulled up outside, I turned to her and said, ‘Did you come to my last fight?’ to which she said, ‘No’. So I said, ‘Would you like to see it on video?’ I was delighted when she said, ‘Okay’.

      She came up to the apartment, but while we were watching the video she began to have a severe headache and neck spasms. I gave her some painkillers but the headache just got rapidly worse. By now I was thinking: Okay, I’m a minority in this country, and where I’ve been living in New York, this kind of thing happens all the time, people get blackmailed or conned. I called an ambulance and they took her to hospital, where it became apparent that, fortunately, she was being genuine. At that point, Ronnie walked in and said, ‘What have you done? What did you do to her?’ to which I vehemently protested my innocence. What had happened was, unbeknown to her, she’d suffered a trapped nerve the previous day when, during a scuffle at the jewellery shop where she worked, one of the owners had accidentally hit her on the back of the neck as he was grappling with a robber.

      Keith Miles found out about what had happened and assumed the worst, so I had to tell him too, ‘I didn’t touch the woman, she broke down.’ They were all very suspicious. The next day I was walking through Brighton’s Norfolk Square, past where Karron worked, so I went in to see if she was better. She said she was fine now and gave me a ‘Thank you’ card. I said, ‘Thank you, it was not a problem. Would you like to go out for dinner?’ She said, ‘Yes’ and I was elated.

      We started to go out and, with my £120 per week allowance, we had some good times. All I did was train, so that money went a long way – we went out quite often. I would train first thing in the morning, about 5.30am, finish at about 7.30am and then start gym work at 2pm or 4pm depending on how I felt. At this point, I was touched with it, I was on heat to train. It was a passion that I could feel within my solar plexus, an inner passion. At first, the people around me were sceptical that I could keep this focused and have a woman in my life at the same time, but it was never an issue. I know it is for some fighters, but it never even started to become a problem for me. I’ve always remained my own man.

      In a sense, because Karron was so easy to get on with, it eliminated the complication of having a difficult girlfriend. I knew this was the woman for me, so I started the relationship off correctly. I hadn’t been out with many women seriously up to this point. I had a girlfriend in England before I left for New York, and over a period of three and a half years, I only had two girlfriends over there. I was so focused with my training and also with the church. The scriptures taught me that you shouldn’t fornicate and I did the best I could! The thought was constantly in my mind but I took that energy and channelled it into training. Karron and I became close very quickly and moved into a flat together above a garage that Keith Miles owned. Bear in mind, I was not famous or wealthy at this point, so to this day I know Karron is with me for me, which for a celebrity is priceless.

      My relationship with Keith Miles, however, was not working so well. He used to talk down to me, like I was an idiot. He would say, ‘Do as you are told.’ I must state that at times he was very nice and a real character, but when he spoke to me in a way that wasn’t dignified, I couldn’t accept that. I said to him, ‘When you disrespect me, I’d rather starve than accept your disrespect.’ So that business relationship ended, and with it went the flat above the garage.

      We moved into a room in Karron’s mother’s house in early 1989, during which time Karron became pregnant with our first child, Christopher. We had all our belongings in this one little room, with a fold-up futon to sit on and a little kitten for a pet. I was training very hard by now and some of that time was spent with the superb boxer, Herol Graham.

      That first fight that Karron had watched before we were even dating was the only time in 47 contests that she came to see an actual bout. I would never have my wife, mother, father or children at the fight. Boxing matches are a desperate situation and I could never understand how fighters wanted their family present. I realise some say it motivates them, but I could never understand that. I wouldn’t even allow my father to watch (mind you, he wouldn’t have wanted to), he would have had a drink and torn the place down in excitement! When I later had a gym upstairs at home, my kids occasionally came up to watch me train but never saw me sparring.

      While we had been trying for our first child, I said to Karron, ‘It is not possible that we will have a girl. It will be a boy and his name will be Christopher.’ There was no more than a 0.001% chance of having a girl. Karron didn’t see it that way, but I was convinced. I spoke about this in the press (I was starting to attract media attention with my lengthening unbeaten record) in a СКАЧАТЬ