Do You Know What?

by Andrew Flintoff

  Whoever they’d managed to dredge up, I’d have felt miles out of my depth. I started questioning everything. I kept seeing these posters of me all over Manchester and there were 10,000 people coming to watch: this was a ridiculous situation I’d landed myself in.

  About five days before the fight, the day before I was meant to be heading to Manchester for the final part of the training camp, I found myself sitting at the top of a staircase in my flat, thinking, ‘I’m not a boxer, all I wanted was a new house with a nice kitchen. I want to get out of this… I really want to get out of this… How the hell do I get out of this?’

  Then I thought, ‘Why not throw yourself down the stairs and try to break your ankle?’ It was like that scene in Escape to Victory when they break the goalkeepers arm. I knew my right ankle was a bit dodgy anyway, so I stood up, took a deep breath … and bottled it.

  However far out of my comfort zone I’ve roamed, I’ve always been able to see the funny side. In fact, the more ridiculous the situation I find myself in, the funnier I find it. There’s a line in the sitcom Peep Show, when Mark gets himself into yet another absurd predicament, and Jez says to him, ‘At least you’ve got a funny story to tell.’ That’s how I felt when I was standing in that ring in Tampa, having a go at everyone, or sat in the doctor’s office, with two broken ribs. And that’s how I felt, sitting at the top of the stairs, contemplating doing myself an injury, to get out of this bloody fight I’d got myself into.

  A few days before the fight, Mungo asked how I was bearing up, and I told him that I was shitting myself. He replied, ‘The only advice I can give you is to play the part of a boxer.’ I thought, ‘Yeah, there’s something in that.’ When I was a cricketer, I played the role of this ultra-confident person: I wouldn’t take a backward step; I seemed bulletproof. I never actually felt like that, but I convinced everybody else that I did, which is a powerful trick. So I thought, ‘Mungo’s right, maybe I can turn myself into a similar animal in the boxing ring?’

  I started getting a bit of a swagger, walking around Manchester as if I owned the place. Then I saw Ricky Hatton, whose gym I was using for final preparations. Ricky had just lost a comeback fight and he looked like he’d been fed through a threshing machine. That took a bit of the spring out of my step.

  The McGuigans got hold of some footage of Richard Dawson, who hailed from Oklahoma and had two wins from two professional fights, but I didn’t watch it. Why would I want to see my opponent beating the shit out of somebody a few days before I climb in the ring with him? The first time I clapped eyes on him was at the press conference, which was the weirdest thing ever. It was at the Hilton in Manchester, and I turned up in a pair of tracksuit trousers and Timberland boots, to add a bit of height. It looked like I’d come straight from the building site, all I was missing was a hard hat.

  I sat at this long table, with Jim Rosenthal, the compère, in the middle, and some fella with a big hat next to him, who I assumed was my opponent’s manager. And next to him was sat ‘Big Bad’ Richard Dawson. To my dismay, ‘Big Bad’ Richard Dawson actually looked very big and very bad.

  A journalist asked Dawson to tell us about himself. ‘Well, I’ve been shot four times, I’ve been inside for GBH and I’m a debt collector by day.’ I was thinking, ‘For fuck’s sake, really? Really, Barry? Of all the boxers in all the world, this is who you’ve come up with for my first fight? I thought boxing was all about match-making, surely you could have found some fat bouncer in Stoke?’ Then a journalist asked me about my background. ‘Well, I played cricket. We dress in whites and stop every two hours for a sandwich and a cup of tea. Oh, and I used to play a bit of chess…’

  Barry had given me all this advice about what to do during the face-off, stuff like don’t turn away first, make him look away. So I was looking down on him, staring straight into his eyes, as hard as I could, and all the time I was thinking, ‘Please turn away, please turn away, I can’t do this for much longer…’ Eventually, he turned away to look at the cameras, and I was thinking, ‘Well, maybe that’s one point to me.’ At least Barry seemed to think so.

  I left the press conference in a state of confusion, not knowing if it had gone well or not, and when I returned to my hotel, I met up with my old England teammates Steve Harmison and Rob Key in the bar. They were looking at me, with pints in their hands, and suddenly Keysey said, ‘You all right, Trev?’ (He always calls me Trev, I don’t really know why.)

  ‘Yeah, I’m all right, Keysey.’

  ‘Bloody ’ell, Trev, ’ave you seen ’im? ’E’s been shot four times, ’e’s gonna kill ya.’

  ‘Cheers, Keysey, that’s all I need…’

  Keysey is one of the funniest people I know, dry as a bone, but this was not the place nor the time to be around any negativity. I left him and Harmy fantasising about the many different ways I might meet my end, and retreated to my room to finally watch the footage of ‘Big Bad’ Dawson.

  I know nothing about the technicalities of boxing, and never will. When I watch boxing, I rely on the commentators to tell me what’s going on. But as I was watching, I was thinking, ‘When he comes forward he’s all right, but if you go at him he shits himself.’ So I decided that the game plan would be to throw as many punches as I could in eight minutes.

  The following day was the weigh-in, at which I decided to wear a pair of Union Jack boxer shorts, which made me look like I was in the BNP. Bad undies aside, I was looking good, had abs and everything, but I’d ended up losing too much weight, so was only 15-and-a-half stone on the scales, 25 pounds lighter than Dawson, which worried me a bit. Denton Vassell was defending his Commonwealth welterweight title on the same bill, and after he got off the scales he did this pose, which made all his muscles pop out. I decided to do the same, except when I did it, it looked like I was straining to do a shit.

  * * *

  The day of the fight. I had barely slept at all that night, but suddenly I’m in the car on the way to the arena, and everything’s real. In the dressing room, I can hear the noise from the arena as other fights play out. I meet my cuts man, Ian ‘Jumbo’ Johnson, who I hope I don’t need, and try to play it cool as proper boxing people who know the drill mill about.

  Then the door bursts open and in falls my brother, who’s been boozing all day with Darren Gough, another former England teammate. My brother is as pissed as ten men. ‘Have you seen him?’ he shouts. ‘He’s from the mean streets of America and he’s fucking massive! He’s gonna belt ya! He’s gonna do to you what I’ve wanted to do for years!’

  I turn to Barry and say, ‘Can someone get rid of him?’

  Goughie just stands there, laughing.

  I get my hands wrapped and the drug testers come in, which I take as a compliment – ‘They must think I’m all right if they’re bothering to test me.’ My cup and gloves are on, which are all taped up, so I say, ‘I know the drill, you’re not going to leave until I’ve given you a sample, but how are we gonna do this?’ So this bloke grabs the pot, we head to the toilet and I think, ‘Fuck it, I’m gonna have some fun with this fella.’

  I’m standing at the urinal and I say, ‘Mate, you’re gonna have to pull me pants down…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I can’t do it, I’ve got gloves on. Why can’t you pull them down for me?’

  ‘I’m not pulling them down.’

  ‘Well, someone’s gonna have to pull me pants down.’

  Eventually, one of my team caves in and pulls them down, and I’m stood there with my gloves by my side.

  ‘Any chance you can hold it as well?’

  ‘I’m not holding it.’

  So I say to the drugs fella, ‘Can you put your rubber glove on and hold it?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, just put the pot down there and I’ll aim for it, see what I can do…’

  Urine collected, Shane gets the pads out and wants me to warm up. I was never really into warming up in cricket, always thought it used up precious energy, so I just
throw a few punches out there. Shane is getting pissed off, so I say, ‘Don’t worry, Shane, I’m saving it’, as if I have some idea of what I’m doing.

  So I’m standing behind the curtain waiting to be introduced, wearing a Lancashire cricket shirt. The music kicks in – Oasis, ‘Roll with It’ – and the place goes off. As I walk through the curtain, something happens. I’ve been nervous and on edge, but suddenly I feel focused. By the time I’m in the ring, I’m thinking, ‘This is amazing, I’m having this.’ Shane and Barry are giving me a pep talk, but I’m in a world of my own. I look around the arena, can see all my mates ringside, and I say to myself, ‘I can’t embarrass myself in front of this lot, I’m gonna destroy this bloke.’

  I start off all right, throw out a couple of jabs, but suddenly lose everything – any technique I’d picked up, my shape, my discipline and very nearly my dignity. I’m windmilling, swinging from every angle, because I’m so desperate to knock him out, and then, in the second round, I find myself on the canvas. One second I’m standing up, the next second I’m on the floor. I didn’t feel a punch. After popping straight up again I’m standing there thinking, ‘What happened there?’ I can see all my mates laughing – Keysey, Harmy, Goughie, my brother more than any of them. My mum is crying, my missus is shouting and screaming, and I think, ‘I’m gonna have to get up and win this fight now, otherwise I’ll never hear the last of it…’

  * * *

  I did get up, and ended up winning on points. The scorecards differed, which wasn’t ideal. I didn’t get many clean shots on him either, I was mainly chucking him about, but I felt I deserved the victory.

  What I hadn’t told anyone was that a few weeks before the fight I injured my shoulder so I couldn’t use my right hand properly. Then, during the third round, I felt it go completely, and by the end I couldn’t lift my right arm up at all. That night, I did the press conference, put my tracksuit back on, put a big coat over the top and put my hand in the pocket. But when I tried to take it out again, I couldn’t. There was something badly wrong, but I didn’t want to ruin the night.

  I hadn’t had a drink for three months, and they said I wasn’t allowed one at the after-party, because if I suffered a bleed on the brain, they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Worse, I still couldn’t pick my arm up, so I asked my missus to phone Dave ‘Rooster’ Roberts, my faithful old physio from my cricket days. Rooster told me my arm had become detached from my shoulder, so I went to see a specialist, had it scanned, and they micro-fractured it in order to regenerate it. It was an injury that turned out to be a blessing. Towards the end of the training camp, I’d almost decided to try to play cricket again because I’d felt so light and fit. I was thinking, ‘If I can box, maybe I can bowl?’ But there was no way on earth I’d be able to bowl after surgery on my shoulder.

  I’d wanted that six-pack for years, but now I looked at it in the mirror and thought, ‘I’ve done that. What next?’ Every time I’d crawled to the top in my life, that feeling of elation was very short-lived before I fell off the cliff and went crashing into the waves again. I had the same feeling after I won anything at cricket. The enjoyment came from the achievement, the challenge, the getting there. Once it was all over, I wanted to start again. Being out of your comfort zone is a good place to be, and being too cosy is not for me.

  CHAPTER 3

  WHAT’S THE WORST THAT CAN HAPPEN?

  Having a go

  When I was a kid, nothing I ever did was good enough, whether I was playing well or playing badly. It meant I never stopped working to improve, but it was also exhausting. It’s also a big part of the reason my head is in the state it’s in now, because no matter what I do, whether it’s a musical or a gameshow or a podcast, I always think I could have done it better. But my overriding feeling is, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? And who cares anyway?’ Whether it’s a gameshow, a podcast or a musical, I’m not solving world peace. I’m just here to entertain, do a bit of singing and dancing, that’s all. I’m not performing complex heart surgery. Whether it all goes right or it all goes wrong, after I’ve finished I’m going to get in the car and drive home to my family, who are the most important people in my world.

  If I have a life philosophy, it’s ‘have a go’. I’m pretty sure that’s what carpe diem means in Latin. I have no fear of trying anything, but I do have a fear of not trying. Imagine getting to 60 and thinking, ‘I wish I’d done that; what if I’d done this?’ I’d rather have a go and fail than not try at all. It would be unfair to my management team to suggest there is no plan, but my plan is basically do as much as I can.

  Believe it or not, my original plan (in my head at least) was to box David Haye, not ‘Big Bad’ Richard Dawson. It didn’t matter that Haye had only just lost his world heavyweight title to Wladimir Klitschko, that was honestly my goal. When Haye was a guest on A League of Their Own, he had beaten Jack Whitehall up, which I thought was disgusting. As you know, I hate bullies. The segment was meant to be a bit of fun, but they put Jack inside a heavy bag and Haye hammered him, even hit him in the head at one point. I was sat there fantasising about fighting him. He would have killed me, but I would have had a bloody good go.

  When I boxed, there was a lot of criticism in the media. People thought I was taking the piss out of the sport. It was actually the opposite: I wanted to show how hard it is. And apart from that one day when I got my head kicked in at the gym, nothing was off limits to the cameras. I was totally honest, because I wanted to celebrate boxers, not demean them. So I wasn’t bothered about the criticism. I don’t believe in people not being able to do things. I truly believe anyone can do anything within reason. The only person who holds you back is yourself. When people say they can’t do something, I just don’t understand it.

  One reason people don’t do things is because they’re afraid of looking stupid or uncool. At my school, if you kept putting your hand up to answer questions, you’d get your head kicked in, because it was unfashionable to be clever. And I think that must have happened to a lot of people, because so many adults think in a similar way. They don’t want to put their hands up to do something in case they get ridiculed. You will look stupid, more than once, but one day you won’t. And who’ll be laughing then?

  I think I frustrate people with my attitude, piss people off, because I’m always telling them that they can have it all. That’s not something people necessarily want to hear because it blows all their excuses out of the water. And giving anything a go doesn’t always go down too well with the people closest to you. Before my one and only boxing match, my mum came to visit for the weekend. I’d mentioned I was thinking about stepping in a ring but hadn’t confirmed anything. We happened to be watching some boxing on the telly, and she turned to me and said, ‘Andrew, I’m so pleased you didn’t decide to do that.’ The bout had already been arranged, so I turned to her and said, ‘Mum, I’ve got something I need to tell you…’ My poor mum was gutted.

  But you can’t go through life acting on the advice of others, otherwise you’d never do anything. I wasn’t the best cricketer by any stretch, there were people a lot better than me, but I desperately wanted to do it for a living, practised hard and found a way. I reckon if I’d been a young lad who wanted to be a footballer, I’d have been a footballer. I didn’t love football like I loved cricket, but all it is is kicking a ball, just as all cricket is is hitting, throwing and catching a ball. Your genes obviously help, but they’re only part of the story.

  I didn’t have a natural fast bowler’s build, I was too big, which is why I used to get injured. I didn’t bowl for eight years as a kid because of a bad back, so I was only ever meant to be a batsman. And my bowling action was terrible. I’d look at people I played with and be so jealous of them. Steve Harmison had a lovely action, Jimmy Anderson’s is beautiful, but, with me, everything was an effort. As I was running in to bowl, I’d be thinking, ‘This is absolute poetry…’ But when I watched it back, I was all arms and legs, and it looked li
ke my shoelaces were tied together. But eventually I got to a point where I thought, ‘I don’t care where my arms and legs go, as long as the ball goes where I want it to.’

  I wasn’t very good at boxing, but I had a professional fight. I beat an actual boxer, from a standing start. All because I thought, ‘Why not have a go?’ If you want to box, learn how to box, then box. If you want to act, learn how to act, then act. If you want to be a poet, learn how to write poems, then write poems. Everything is there for you, if you want it enough.

  I’ve not taken easy options, but having gone out on limbs, there were always people wanting me to come crashing back to earth. Rob Key always says to me, ‘When you fall flat on your face, I want to be there to see it.’ The difference is, he’s a mate and he’s only joking. But there are people I played with and against, people I worked with, members of the public, the press, who would love to see me fail. I like that, it spurs me on. It’s no different from when I was a cricketer: write me off and I’m confident I’ll make you look stupid.

  It annoys me when people say I’m lucky or have been given everything. They think I swan around, getting gigs for no other reason than I used to be Freddie Flintoff the cricketer. But there are so many people who have had successful sporting careers and done nothing afterwards. I’ve worked my arse off, practised hard, put the hours in. It annoys people if you step into ‘their’ world and upset the applecart. Fine, I didn’t go to drama school or whatever school I should have gone to, but I’ve done plenty of catching up and carved out opportunities for myself. People don’t see me at the BBC learning how to present, or taking acting and singing lessons and dying on my arse, or getting up early to write sitcoms or stand-up routines. I guess it’s a lot easier for people to think I’ve been handed everything on a plate.