24 lBOXING NEWSlJULY 4, 2019 http://www.boxingnewsonline.net➤“It’s been a long journey,” Kieran told BN. “I’ve
stayed in the boxing game, but it has always felt
like there has been something missing all this time.
Now my brother is in the gym and about to make
his pro debut, I feel complete. His journey started
when mine ended. Now we’re here.”
For Kieran, it feels like the end, the closing of
a chapter, yet for Nathan it’s the beginning. The
beginning of his pro career, certainly, but the
beginning of a new chapter in life, too. And
forget belts, it’s life that matters.
Kieran, a case in point, realised there was
more to life than boxing when bedbound
and unable to walk for eight weeks following
his career-ending injury. He realised this
when told his mother had been
informed by doctors that she needed
to sign a consent form to allow
them to drill into his brain if
necessary (thankfully, it wasn’t).
He realised this when a
10-round fight for an English
title changed both his and his
brother’s life irrevocably.
It changed Nathan’s life in
small ways at first. The daily
inquisition, fuelled by a fear
Kieran might again fall into his
arms, and that his eyes might
again roll back in his head, and that
he might again be unable to answer
him, was a tell-tale sign. Then there were
the pillows he positioned around the radiator,
placed there in case Kieran tumbled out of his bed
and cracked a head now as fragile as sugar glass,
thus sending him back to square one – or worse.
Then there were the regular breathing checks
he made during the 20 hours a day Kieran spent
sleeping, as well as all the times he helped him put
his socks on.
It all combined to convince Nathan, now
cognisant of boxing’s dangers, he would never fight
again. Worse, he grew to hate it.
“Nathan couldn’t watch boxing for a couple of
years. He didn’t like it,” Kieran said. “I’d be on the
bed with my iPad watching fights, not able to walk
because of boxing, and he wouldn’t have any of
it. I’d watch people get knocked out and say, ‘Look
at this, Nay. It’s a proper good knockout.’ But he
wouldn’t want to look at it.”
Nathan couldn’t understand how his brother
still befriended something that had caused them
both so much agony. To Nathan’s dismay, Kieran
was making masterpieces of his own nightmares,
able to do so because boxing was still something
he associated with happier times. Though unable
to walk, he was blissfully ignorant, aware his pain
would soften and subside in a way the images left
on the minds of loved ones never would.
“With boxing, I’ve got no resentment or anything.
I love it,” said Kieran, whose pro record was
curtailed at 14-1 (3). “I loved it even more when that
injury happened to me. That sounds stupid but it’s
true.
“I’ve learnt so much about the business side
of the sport since then and have become more
involved as a manager, promoter and trainer. I
see more now. I know so much about it. I’m so
experienced even though I’m still only 29 years old.
I don’t know anything else to do and I love what I
do.”
“I looked after Kieran in his bed when he was
recovering and ended up depressed and had bouts
of anxiety,” said Nathan. “I used to have nightmaresfor about a year after his injury. It affected me
badly.
“Growing up my idol was no famous person. My
idol was my brother. To see firsthand that happen
to him knocked me. It knocked me quite bad.
“Once he got out of hospital, he wanted to open
a gym, but I said I’d never fight again. I was pretty
stern on that. I fell out with boxing for a while.”
As kids, Kieran and Nathan, along
with Brian, their older brother, mostly
concentrated on becoming footballers, a far
safer game, before boxing seduced Kieran at
the age of seven. He went to the gym and it
was both fun and benign at first. He enjoyed
punching things and getting fit and not once
did he consider what could go wrong or
the possibility that his love for boxing
might one day be questioned.
If anything, back then football
provided the damage and
heartache. A knee injury, for
example, suffered by Nathan
at nine years of age left him
with torn ligaments – a “total
write-off,” said Kieran – and in
a wheelchair for six months,
leading to weight gain and a
loss of confidence.
There was, in the end, only one
remedy for it: the boxing gym. So, at
13, following a period playing darts to
county level, Nathan also enrolled.
“He actually got really good,” said Kieran. “I used
to do pad-work for him at home and we would go
running together. I said, ‘If you’re going to box, Nay,
this is what you’ve got to do.’ I learnt that at 15
and started being successful. I was beating people
I shouldn’t have been beating, like Michael Conlan
and Tommy Stubbs, who was a three-time ABA
champion.
“When Nathan started boxing, he had 10 fights in
the space of a couple of years and won them all. He
beat Darren Tetley and some other good lads.”
Though he boxed for England at 18, Kieran
decided he would focus more on training like a
professional with a view to becoming one. This plan
took him to Bobby Rimmer’s gym where he trained
with his own coach, Pat Ward, and also Nathan,
who tagged along and showed no aversion to
sparring grown men. He was 15 years old.
“He knocked out an unbeaten guy and sent his
legs bandy, all over the place,” remembered Kieran.
“That was when he was 16 or 17. I thought, ‘Wow,
give it another year and he’ll be turning pro.’
“Anyway, I ended up training in Belfast and set
off on my own journey. Nathan didn’t come with
me. He was still ticking over at home doing his
training.
“Then I had the injury.”
Rather than turn pro at 18, Nathan instead found
himself holding on to his brother in the middle of a
boxing ring and praying they would again have the
chance to talk. With no forewarning, he transitioned
from future pro boxer to his sibling’s carer, an
about-turn he describes as his “world tipping
upside down” but one spared a sulk. Conversely,
he was happy to be close to Kieran during his time
of need. He felt obligated to ask him the same
question 20 times a day and to protect his head
from the sharp edges of his bedroom. Just like on
the streets growing up, there was danger at every
turn, and they were brothers.
“On Christmas Eve one side of my face dropped
and went limp,” said Kieran. “They took me toREADY:
Nathan is
looking
forward to his
professional
debut.
.
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