BOXED IN
EVERY athlete has moments where they are in total control of themselves and everything going on around them. The moments when even the fastest action seems to happen in slow motion. “It’s the most fantastic feeling you can imagine,” Colin Dunne told Boxing News. “I haven’t experienced everything in the world obviously but, God, that would take some beating.”
Those moments are etched in Dunne’s memory. He can still feel the thrill of elbow to elbow competition and the tightening of the reins in his hands. Yes, the tightening of the reins. Dunne isn’t remembering his high quality victories over the likes of Phillip Holiday and Billy Schwer. Those would come later. The Liverpudlian is remembering life as an apprentice jockey.
Liverpool was almost cut adrift from the rest of the country in the 1980s. Teetering on the precipice of ‘managed decline’, unemployment rose as investment dipped. For youngsters leaving school the outlook was bleak. Sport and music provided escape rafts for some but for the vast majority, the last day of school was swiftly followed by the first day of unemployment.
At just six-and-a-half stone and unable to hold a tune, Dunne could easily have been swallowed up and lost in the malaise but his size afforded him a unique opportunity.
Dunne had never even treated the donkeys that trudge along Southport beach to a well-deserved sugar cube. Suddenly, instead of joining the masses and praying for a place on
