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“It went from a chicken bhuna to a full-scale brawl”

He drank away his Premier League career and found salvation in the boxing ring. But Curtis Woodhouse is not done with football yet k

Words Amit Katwala

W hile his Birmingham City teammates played in the 2001 League Cup final at Cardiff ’s Millennium Stadium,

Curtis Woodhouse was drunk in the city centre, tearing up a curry house in an argument over the bill.

“We were having something to eat,” he remembers. “Then, before you know it, the windows had been put through, people were getting hit with chairs. It was absolute carnage. I’m down there to watch my team play Liverpool in the League Cup final, and I’m having a fight with a chair in an Indian restaurant at about 10 o’clock at night. It’s not even late!”

Woodhouse was cup-tied for the game, but his actions were indicative of a dissatisfaction and disinterest in his career. He had wanted to be a footballer for as long as he could remember – since emulating John Barnes in the playground during a difficult childhood in Driffield, near Hull. But when he made it – first at Sheffield United, and then later at Birmingham, Peterborough and a host of non-league clubs – he couldn’t stand it.

“One man’s heaven is another man’s hell, as they say,” he explains. “I don’t want sympathy or anything, but it wasn’t the dream that I thought it was going to be. Football wasn’t all it was cracked up to be for me.”

Football’s drinking culture was on its way out when Woodhouse began his professional career. But he gave it a hearty farewell, sabotaging himself with a series of baffling decisions and criminal behaviour including theft, robbery and affray.

“I look at Tyson Fury now and I just kind of think I half know what he’s going through,” he explains. “He’s just kind of acting out a little bit, rebelling against the whole system, and I believe that’s kind of what happened with me. I thought: ‘You know what? I’m just not gonna play by your rules; I’m gonna play by my own rules.’ I was intent [on that] and I was dedicated to self-destructing.”

Alcohol was Woodhouse’s weapon of choice, but he wasn’t alone. Not to start with. “When I made my debut at 17, the normal thing to do was go out drinking,” he says. “When I was going on benders and things like that, I wasn’t on my own. I was there with six or seven of the other lads. My problem was they could always kind of stop, whereas I just carried on. And that’s my personality – I have a very addictive personality. If I’m doing something, I’m doing it. And I’m doing it hard.”

But the game moved on. “It went from seven or eight of us to two, and I was like: ‘Where has everyone gone?’ The influx of foreign players and managers – they couldn’t believe what we were doing, and I couldn’t believe what they were doing. Arsene Wenger was a big part of changing that in England. The old school: play, get drunk, fall out of nightclubs – the Paul Gascoigne, Tony Adams type of players –

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“Saying ‘I’m gonna be a boxer’ is easy. It’s fine saying it. When you’re walking to the ring and there’s someone waiting to fight you, all of a sudden it’s like: ‘This is actually gonna happen, is it? I thought we were just having a joke! I thought this was just a bit of banter!’ Then when you’re in there and you’re waiting and the guy rings the bell and everybody else gets out…”

Woodhouse applied himself to boxing with the kind of fervour and discipline he never gave his football career. He shed weight, got in shape, and learned the skills.

“I was able to self-evaluate what went wrong in my football career, work out how it went wrong and put that into my boxing career because I’m a gifted athlete. I believe if I’d have stopped football at 26 and picked up a tennis racket, I’d have probably won Wimbledon – or done alright, anyway.

“I pick up sport really quickly, so I was able to take what I learned in football – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and put it into a whole new sport. My trainers said they’d never seen a kid as obsessed and dedicated to improving himself.” k

disappeared and there was a new batch, a new breed. I’d been left behind with the old school.

“When I was a young kid, all I wanted to be was John Barnes and play for England and Liverpool. That’s what I dreamed about my whole life. And when I was young, every little good thing I did I thought: ‘Right, that’s a closer step, I’m getting there.’ And then, before I know it, I’d blinked and three years had passed and I was four stone heavier and two yards slower, drunk all the time. Before I know it, it’s up. I’m nowhere near John Barnes. I’m struggling to get in the Peterborough United team, and the dream is over.”

Self-improvementAt 26, Woodhouse had retired from football. He embarked on a new journey. He wanted to be British boxing champion. “The craziest moment was probably doing my ring walk for my first ever fight,” he says. It was a welterweight contest at the Grosvenor House Hotel in September 2006, against Dean Marcantonio. P

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“I was able to take what I learned in football and put it into a whole new sport. My trainers said they’d never

seen a kid as obsessed and dedicated to improving himself ”

In Box to Box, his autobiography, Woodhouse likens winning the British light-welterweight title, which he did on a split-decision against Darren Hamilton in 2014, to Frank Bruno scoring the winner in the FA Cup final. “Frank’s a big lad though,” he laughs. “He might make a decent centre-forward!”

It is a remarkable achievement – to endure the scorn and scrutiny and come out victorious. “The beauty about the

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because I knew if I won other titles people could still ridicule me saying this, that and the other. I knew if I won the British title, nobody could say a thing.”

Qualified successIn September, Woodhouse was appointed manager of Bridlington Town, who play in the Northern Counties East League Premier Division, the ninth tier of English football. “Football management I believe will be my best career,” he says. “I believe I’ll be a top-flight manager – that’s my aim. I believe I have the qualities. I’ve done my coaching badges so I’m ‘qualified’, as they call it, to be a manager at the top level. So now it’s about putting the foundations in place, working at the lower levels, making my mistakes and improving. That’s why I’m at Bridlington Town.”

One thing Woodhouse can’t learn is how to deal with a player as off the rails as he was. “Nobody could have done anything,” says the 36-year-old, who wants to be managing in the Football League by the time he is 40. “Some people can’t be saved. Some people are not for saving. Alex Ferguson could have been my manager. Bob Paisley, the greatest managers that ever lived – it wouldn’t have mattered.”

It was boxing that saved Curtis Woodhouse. Just as he took lessons from his first foray with football into the ring, maybe some of that no-nonsense approach will translate into the dugout.

“The word philosophy drives me mad,” says the footballer-turned-boxer-turned- unlikely manager. “I hate the word. My philosophy is winning. I don’t care about anything else. Just win.”

@amitkatwala

Box to Box by Curtis Woodhouse is out now (£18.99, Simon & Schuster)

British title is that it can’t be bought, it can’t be manufactured, it can’t be manipulated,” says Woodhouse.

“You have to win it and deserve it. You get all these belts now that are not worth a carrot. You know you pay enough money to a promoter, you can get anybody over to fight for them – absolute tomato cans from Mexico with sexy records. The British [title] tells the truth, and that’s the beauty of winning it. That’s why I wanted it,

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“Some people are not for saving. Alex Ferguson could have been my manager. Bob Paisley. It wouldn’t have mattered”

Six other athletes whose careers took a drastic turn

Michael JordanBasketball legend spent two seasons in minor league baseball for the Birmingham Barons and the Scottsdale Scorpions. He then returned to the Chicago Bulls, leading them to three straight championships.

Alex ZanardiThe Italian former Formula 1 driver lost both legs after a crash, but has forged an inspiring career as a handcyclist. He has won four Paralympic golds, and a host of world championships.

Sonny Bill WilliamsHe’s only the second person ever to represent New Zealand in both rugby codes, and Williams has also had a successful on-and-off boxing career, with seven wins from seven fights.

Victoria PendletonRetired track cycling gold-medallist went from horse racing novice to finishing a creditable fifth in this year’s Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham. Showjumping is her next target.

Rebecca RomeroThe Brit won silver in the quadruple sculls at the 2004 Olympics, then took up track cycling and won gold in Beijing. Even considered canoeing when the individual pursuit was dropped from the 2012 Games.

Tim TebowThe publicity-loving quarterback is forging a career in baseball after leaving the NFL. He’s signed a minor league contract with the New York Mets, and hit a home-run from the first pitch he faced.

S W I T C H -H I T T E R S