Rejuvenated Leon McKenzie planning for bright future - Steve Bunce

Former footballer was saved from suicide by his father, writes Steve Bunce, now he wants a British belt

(Getty Images)

One squalid afternoon, Clinton McKenzie saved his beloved son from the dark end of a coma in a grubby hotel room in south London, at a time when his boy, a fallen Premier League striker, was dedicated to death.

On the bedside table that afternoon were the discarded packages of more than 40 swallowed pills. The tiny tablets, combined with the whisky, had started to blur the bleak lines of young Leon’s life. He was going to die before his father came through the door, surrounded by panicked hotel staff, fell to his knees to cradle his son’s head and started talking to him: “Champ, wake up.” He never wanted to, but he did.

That awful day was in 2009 and on Saturday night at York Hall, east London, the pair embraced in the centre of the ring when Leon, having his eighth professional fight at 37 years of age, forced John McCallum to quit on his stool at the end of the sixth round in a stupidly personal fight.

The fight on Saturday was an eliminator for the British super-middleweight title, which is being fought for in Liverpool next month when Callum Smith and Rocky Fielding meet, but there were far more important prizes for the winner than the endless promises that the boxing business routinely makes to fighters.

Long before McCallum and McKenzie met to punch each other on Saturday night, their unpleasant encounter had started to turn sour when the Scottish boxer took a series of thoughtless and ugly swipes at McKenzie’s troubled life. The uncensored online boxing media gave him a voice without any decency or sense and it was McKenzie’s children and family who found the slurs on the internet.

“He called me ‘Suicide Leon’ and did interviews online where he proved his ignorance by talking about how people should just get on with it if they are having a bad day,” said McKenzie. It was not the usual banter, trust me, and McKenzie, after 18 long years inside professional football, knows about what you can say, and what you can’t say. He admits that he used his fists, when he was still getting paid for using his feet, when people crossed the line.

“I had to educate him, to tell him how wrong he was,” added McKenzie. “Depression is a mental illness, you don’t just ‘get on with it’. I told him that, I showed him that. He never apologised, but I went over at the end and shook his hand, I wanted to be the better man: I was.”

McKenzie Snr knows about the promises, the broken ones and the false ones, that ruin the careers of even the very best fighters McKenzie was an Olympian in 1976, losing to Sugar Ray Leonard, then won British and European titles as a professional, but never got near the world title fight he deserved and was promised.

‘I had to educate him’: Leon McKenzie after beating John McCallum at York Hall (Getty Images)

Leon often celebrated triumphs in the ring with his dad, a smiling kid with clear eyes lost inside the gloved-cuddle of his big, powerful father. I remember him being ushered in and out of the ring, but he never boxed as an amateur and went on trial as a footballing boy to Crystal Palace.

“You know what, Buncey,” Leon said after winning at York Hall. “I’m a fighter now – the goals against United and Chelsea and all the games in the Premier League, they will never go, but I’m a fighter, a boxer, and nobody can deny that.”

Leon gets a mention in Jose Mourinho’s book because of a header, climbing way above an incensed John Terry, at home for Norwich in 2005 that went past Petr Cech. He still has a soft spot for Delia Smith and scored in her “let’s be having you” game. He could play football and now he can certainly fight – in the middle came the depression, the pills, and that led to the boxing redemption alongside his dad in the family gym in south London. Oh yeah, he was also sent to prison for speeding fines in 2012, the year before he turned professional.

“It’s been a journey to get here and now I’ve got such a great relationship with my old man,” continued McKenzie. “It’s like two hearts beating as one in that ring. It feels like I belong, it’s a great feeling.” This week the father and son will sit down and look at future fights. It’s not quite a fairytale but it is a considerable distance from that room on a miserable afternoon back in 2009.

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Born 17 May, 1978, Croydon

Football career

1995-2000 Crystal Palace

1997 Fulham (loan)

1998 Peterborough (loan)

2000-03 Peterborough

2003-06 Norwich City

2006-09 Coventry City

2009-10 Charlton Athletic

2010-11 Northampton

2011 Kettering Town

2012-13 Corby Town

Boxing career

Professional debut as a super-middleweight against John Mason at York Hall in June 2013.

Fights 8 Wins 7 (2ko) Draws 1