Alex Arthur keeps children from life on ropes

Published on Friday 4 February 2011 12:20

A CAPITAL boxing hero told today how his father's uncompromising view on drugs helped him make good his lofty ambitions, as he sets about delivering a clean-living message to youngsters outside of the ring.

Former WBO World super featherweight champion Alex Arthur said his dad gave him the tools to avoid the pitfalls of growing up in a community often besieged by drugs and laid the building blocks for his later glories.

But with a new initiative planned for schools across the Capital and the country, Arthur says he will don kid gloves as he discusses his upbringing in a rough city centre suburb and the impact illegal drugs had on those around him.

The Dumbiedykes pugilist has teamed up with Alex Brown of Bronx Boxing Gym in Tranent - where he now trains - to deliver a series of lectures designed to deter youngsters from spiralling into a world of drug use and ill-health.

The 32-year-old hopes his compelling story will help inspire some to emulate his sporting success and warn others off alcohol and drugs.

"(My father] Alex Snr was horribly anti-drugs to the point where you couldn't take a paracetamol if you had a sore head - it was bordering on the ridiculous," he said.

"I think growing up in his era in Niddrie he saw drugs coming to the city and was always horrified because he watched so many young people go from healthy working men to just wasting away on drugs and I think it frightened him.

"I remember him telling us when we were young that he would rather we were dead than junkies on the street. I remember my parents used to like Marvyn Gaye, whose father killed him because he became a junkie and my dad always said that was the right thing to do."

But Alex Snr's uncompromising attitude shaped the boxer's own perspective of what was possible. He inherited a bloody-mindedness and discipline that ultimately propelled him to the very top of his profession. This tunnel-vision was conditioned by a childhood of austerity.

"I was always convinced I was born to be a boxing champion, right from a very young age and it was all I wanted to be. From 10 years old I did nothing but train. I lived a very monotonous lifestyle and when my friends were going out and meeting girls and hanging around the local parks, I never took part in anything like that.

"I wasn't guided towards the vices other young people were guided towards.

"Boxing changed my life - it was just amazing. It was something that came along as a very young boy. When I first went to the gym I learned how to be disciplined more than anything else, and control myself, my emotions. You were often so tired after all the training you couldn't have gone out and done anything else anyway."

Alex, a former WBO super-featherweight champion, has accomplished more on the canvas than many dare to dream, but he said he often reflects on friends - from a similar background as he - who aren't around to share in his success.

"I've seen friends die and seen them take drugs, Dumbiedykes was just a bad place for that. Because it's in the city centre it's often overlooked.

"The city centre was a bad area for those things, particularly my neighbourhood, where there were a lot of druggies, people going downhill and some of them dying.

"I had a close friend that died and friends of friends, some of them have spiralled terribly out of control and are either in prison or really bad junkies.

"I would guess they had as much potential as me but were never guided or on the right path and that's something I would hope to achieve with the youngsters I speak with.

"Hopefully I'm going to capture young people's minds and hearts and try to steer them in the right direction and guide them towards their local sports club and get them doing something positive with themselves and it will pay a massive dividend in their future.

"I'm hoping to convince these kids that you don't have to do bad things to get good things in your life.

"You don't have to go down a bad road to have a pleasant life. You can live a disciplined life like I did; getting up everyday with a goal and something to achieve and just not hanging around doing nothing when you could be led into something that could spiral horribly out of control for family and friends and most importantly for yourself."