Keep the faith

IN NOVEMBER of 2006 a handy fighter by the name of Sergio Palomo came to these parts looking for a piece of Alex Arthur. Palomo was strong and determined, unbeaten in 21 fights and confident in his chances of making it 22. He had that look in his eye that impressed Arthur and told him that here was a man who genuinely believed he could win. And Palomo had something else going for him, or so he said.

In his corner, he had a friend in history. "Hey Alex," he declared. "Have you met my mate? This is him here. Nostradamus is his name."

That's right, Nostradamus. Palomo touched down and started talking about the old boy's lost texts, the previously unheard of revelations that one day a Spaniard would go to Scotland and shake up the world. "Is that a fact?" was Arthur's response. "Hey Nostradamus, welcome to Scotland big man." And what happened on the night? "Oh, Palomo was good but I finished him off in five. Took him apart piece by piece." And Nostradamus? "Aye, aye. I didn't see him there to be honest."



Nostradamus at the Kelvin Hall is a little fanciful, it's true. And speaking of unlikely things, there's Arthur's next fight to talk about. Meadowbank on May 3 marks the biggest night of his career, a shot at the WBO super-featherweight championship of the world against the title holder, the rather imposing Joan Guzman of the Dominican Republic. Like Palomo, Guzman is undefeated; 28 fights, 28 wins, 17 by knockout. Unlike Palomo, he doesn't talk nonsense. Not yet at any rate. There's time, of course. Always time for jive in this game.



Arthur looks at the Friday morning papers and smiles. The reports of the bout are kind and respectful to his chances but reading between the reporters' lines he sees doubt. Loads and loads of doubt. So begins the spiel.

"The boxing writers are great to me but I'm not sure they think I can win this one," he says. "I think they've underestimated me, which is a brilliant thing. I've competed at this level before and it's never bothered me, you know? I've competed against really good fighters in the past who in my mind and in my heart frightened me a little bit more than what this guy does. I don't think he's mentally right or mentally strong, this fella.



"If he's such a big star why's he not fought the likes of Antonio Barrera and Manny Pacquiao and Juan Marquez for massive amounts of money? He's coming here for a terrible purse. Seventy thousand pounds. For a world champion, that's poor money. How's he not generating the big money like the other world champions if he's so great? And he's obviously having problems with his trainers as well. He was training with Floyd Mayweather Snr but he's left him to go and work with Oscar De La Hoya. Then he passed the job on to his brother but his brother is now training De La Hoya's opponent. So who's training him? What's he doing? I'm not sure he's mentally secure."

He says all of this with a glint in his eye, with a passion and a wit you could listen to all day. It's no wonder that so many people root for Alex Arthur, no wonder that an hour in his company leaves you both gobsmacked and hopeful that all those dreams he talked about come true, every last one of them.



He's cheeky (in a good way), he's intelligent, he's warm and he's frank. Boy is he frank. At the heart of him is his Christianity. He wears it lightly but recognises a sceptic when he sees one. "I can see it in your eyes," he laughs. "You're cynical. You'll have to come to church my man. God will sort you out, no danger."

GOD AND boxing. That's been the way of it since he was 10, since his father was put in prison for attempted murder and since the first of his mates started dying on him in a drugged-up, bleach-drinking haze. He reckons four or five good pals from their old hunting ground on Edinburgh's Dumbiedykes estate are below ground now.

"I could have gone to a very bad place too," he says. "Oh, no doubt about it. I believe God guided me. I can't take the credit for staying on the straight and narrow. God directed my steps. Nobody can convince me otherwise. It's been tried many a time, I can tell you. Oh aye, many a time."



Alex Snr says his boy is lucky, what with the successful career, a loving wife, three healthy children, a nice house, money in the bank, a vast goodwill in his homeland and most of all, peace of mind, but Jnr doesn't believe in luck. He's not a fan of the concept. He likes the word 'blessed' better. He has no doubt he's been blessed. He says his dad has been blessed too but he hasn't realised it yet. He says if there is one man on earth who should believe in God's power it is his father. After the life he once had and the life he has now? Blessed is the only adequate way to describe it.



Listen to this, he says, and decide if God hasn't had a role to play in the way the Arthurs turned out. "My dad was a terrible man. Oh, he was dreadful. See growing up, any chance to be aggressive, he'd take it. He had four younger brothers and was raised in one of the worst areas of Edinburgh and if you didn't or couldn't look after yourself you were just picked on. His dad, another Alex Arthur, wasn't very forthcoming with him. He was a very strict dad, a coal miner, a tough boy.



"Things escalated in my dad's life and he became a violent criminal. He got done for attempted murder. I think he attempted to murder many people but this time he was caught. There was some argument over some loot they'd got and the one big guy in the gang said my dad didn't deserve the amount he was getting, or something of that nature.

"They said 'right, let's end this dispute over a fair fight', so they went into a tunnel next door to a bar and fought for what I'm led to believe was about half an hour. This guy was way over 6ft tall, my dad is only 5ft 6in. Somewhere along the line a knife was thrown into the fight and although they both scrambled for it my dad got there first and apparently he stabbed the other boy in the stomach just above the pelvic bone. Took it up here and jammed it in there. The guy was on a life support machine for a while. Thank God he pulled through and went on to lead a reasonably good life as far as I know. There was no way out of that for my dad."



He did three years. It was in this time that 10-year-old Alex found boxing and God. In jail, his father didn't mind his boy visiting him and talking about his growing affinity with the church and how he was learning good stuff and meeting nice people and scoring loads of goals for the church football team; it was the fighting talk he objected to. Always did. Through the church he found boxing and Alex Snr didn't like that part of it one little bit.

"He always loved watching boxing on the telly, my dad. He'd wake me up as a boy and go 'Alex, Alex, the Mike Tyson fight is on, come and watch it with me but keep it down coz your mum is asleep'. And we'd lie on a rug and he'd let me drink Coca Cola and make me cheese and jam on toast and we'd watch the fights. And then I'd say, 'dad are you maybe gonna let me give that boxing a go' and he'd say 'no way, it's a bad business. Stick in at school. Make all your money sitting down, son.' That went in one ear and out the other. As soon as he went (to prison], I went (to boxing]."

THE PROBLEM Alex Snr had was an understandable one. In his day he'd done a bit of bare-knuckle boxing for cash. He knew a few a professional fighters, he knew the scene in all its facets, the good, the bad and the ugly. Mostly the bad and the ugly. He didn't want his lad mixed up in that. A kid could meet the wrong people in that game very easily.



What's amazing, says Alex Jnr, is that it all turned out so well. God's work for sure. His father came out of jail a reformed character. Even though in his early teens Alex could recognise the difference in him after he'd served his time, could see that he wanted to spend more hours with his two sons, could see that he was drinking less and was dealing well with his aggression problem. The anger had disappeared. Now, 16 years on, he's a doting grandfather. "A tremendous grandfather. Oh man, he's tremendous."

Occasionally, his past comes back to hurt him. Literally. "It's incredible that he's here today because my dad has had many contracts out on his life. Up to now he knows of about three or four."

The underworld he used to be a part of almost got to him once. It was July 2003, the week of Arthur's British title fight with Glasgow's Willie Limond, at that stage the most important test of his career. The old man was selling tickets for the fight when someone set about him with a baseball bat, breaking his jaw, fracturing his nose and rendering him unconscious on the street. "Obviously it was done to upset me as well as my dad but my family kept it from me. They told me he'd gone out, had one pint too many and slipped on my son Alex's car in the dark and fell and hit his face on the coffee table. I believed every word of it. I was so focused on the fight I swallowed every line. I said, 'that's an unfortunate one dad. See if you'd stayed sober and gone to church in the morning that would never have happened to you.' I was laughing.



"After I won the fight they told me. Since then stories have come back that somebody had paid somebody else to do this to him. There's lot of jealousy in this city. My success? Some people don't like it and some people don't like my dad. So, that's what happened. We worry about it happening again some time. I don't think he worries. He says if it happens it happens. I don't think he really cares to be honest. He always says 'if they're gonna come and get me they better get me properly'. The man's made of tough stuff. The only way to beat my dad properly would be to put a bullet in his head. That would be your safer bet.



"I'd like him to understand that God is maybe looking after him. He just says he's lucky. He's not. He's been blessed in getting away from his old life the same way I've been blessed in not falling into the traps some of my friends fell into. I say, 'dad, there's more to this than luck and the sooner you realise it the better'."



Converting the old man is a challenge that will test him to the full but he won't stop trying and neither will he stop believing that come the first Saturday in May, Guzman, the celebrated artist with the flawless record, will be there for the taking. The underdog will have his day, he says. Not for the first time and not for the last he looks you in the eye, hits you with a winning smile and says he believes. He's always believed. And he always will.