In Fort William, the hills are not small and Scott Harrison is only interested
in going up them. His regular training run has Ben Nevis as its backdrop
and, in the foreground, his father, Peter, stopping the car every 400 yards
to encourage him gently through the slashing rain. Scott finishes with short
shuttle sprints up a grassy bank with a 40lb pack strapped to his back.
This, clearly, is no luxury training camp, and yet Harrison is a boxer
preparing for a bout that may never come.
Clouds of uncertainty cluster over a career that notoriously hit the skids and
yet, he says, out on that lonely road, the thought spinning on a loop
through his mind could not be clearer. A skilful and phenomenally hard
featherweight, he has been world champion twice, but he drank his career dry
in the Glasgow pubs and appeared to have abandoned it at the bar. Now he
wants it back, plus a third world title, too, and it is this that sustains
him.
“ ‘Three times world champion, three times world champion.’ That is what I say
to myself when I’m running,” he said. “It’s got a good sound to it. And I’ll
say: ‘Who’s done that before in Scotland? No one. Three times world
champion. Three times world champion. Keep going up that hill.’ It’s a
reality, I tell you, it is going to happen.”
And, when you witness the pace of his ascent, you would not disagree. Except
that his fitness on this short training camp, and the fact that he swears
that he has not had a drink “for months”, may have nothing to do with it;
Harrison was stripped of his licence to compete professionally two years ago
and there is no guarantee that the British Boxing Board of Control will bend
to his plea to return it.
That is one reason why The Times has been given a particularly rare
interview — because he wants the board to believe it when he says he is
feeling “fantastic”. Or that: “I feel the same kind of buzz now as when I
fought for my first world title. I’ve got my love for boxing back. I’ve got
my motivation back, my focus, my drive. You know when you’re feeling right
for a fight, you know you’re going to win the world title. You know you’re
up for it and that you haven’t got distractions out of the ring. That’s how
I am now, I’m just waiting for that licence.”
He does not like to do interviews, that much is clear from the air of menace
and the apparently subconscious stroking of his knuckles with which unwanted
questions are greeted. Even as we speak, his father’s news that two Glasgow
journalists are in Fort William looking for him is a reminder of his
undisguised hatred for the media. He feels that the media have judged him.
The 30-year-old acknowledges that he had a string of brushes with the law in
Scotland and Spain, three visits to the Priory, pulled out late from two
bouts and “went completely off the rails”, but suggests that it is the
media’s fault that he cannot work in his chosen profession at present.
The point, as far as those rails go, he says, is that he is now safely back on
them. He has pending for February 11 a court hearing for an alleged incident
two years ago, which incurred four charges including assaulting a police
officer. He also has not quite buried the incidents in Spain, the second of
which started with a fight, reportedly in a brothel — “I’m not so sure of
that,” his father said — and after which he had his passport removed.
The Board of Control has a clause that errs against boxers bringing the sport
into disrepute and will be watching closely the events of February 11. It
was the events in Spain, though, that crystallised Harrison’s mind. It took
eight months to get the passport back, during which time he was in
purgatory. By the end of it, he had been out of the ring for nearly two
years.
“The penny must have dropped when I came back from Spain, when I realised how
much I’d lost,” he said. “I couldn’t handle not boxing. It’s a huge part of
my life. In fact, it is my life. So I have to come back and will be world
champion again.”
The boxing was not all he lost. “I basically got used to living in a money
bracket where my spending was totally different to what it was before I won
the world title,” he said. “So end result: I go bankrupt. That is why my
life hangs in the balance. If I don’t get my licence back, I’ll go to
America to fight. I’ve been offered work over there. I’ve got a family, two
kids. How else am I going to pay for clothes and food? And how can the board
tell a man he cannot work?
“I don’t want to have to go to America. I’ve split up with my ex, so it’s not
as if I can take my kids. Plus I’m patriotic. I want to stay in Scotland. So
America would be my last chance. I have to make money.”
The question the board will surely be asking is whether Harrison is likely to
descend back to his old ways. This is where we see the menace; Harrison does
not want to talk about the old ways and he insists they are largely a media
fabrication, anyway.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been through hell,” he said. “But I never had
depression \. I was drinking too much. Partying too much. Excess living put
me in the Priory, not depression. That was it. I just went off the rails. I
went to the Priory to try and sort it out. To be honest, it made me worse. I
was in the Priory in Belfast for a good few weeks, that helped me the most.
“I was in the one in London for a day and left and in the Glasgow one for
about a week. But those days were a long time ago.”
Might they not return? “Why would I want to put myself through that hell
again?” he replied. “I’d be absolutely crazy. You’ve made a mistake once,
you’d be fairly crazy to make it again. I’m lucky that I’ve got a second
chance.”
The deeper problem, he insists, was trying to make the 9st required of a
featherweight. “I lost my love for boxing because I was killing myself
trying to make the weight,” he said. “Torture, an absolute living torture.”
So moving up to super-featherweight is another reason why he believes a third
title is coming his way. That plus the lifestyle change. “I was partying a
good few weeks into my training camp,” he said. “I’m feeling younger now.
“Scott Harrison’s back, definitely. I’ll be world champion this year. And all
the doubters who thought I’d never come back — they’re going to be eating
their words.” At least, they might be. They might if the board acquiesces.
And that is a hill that Harrison cannot climb on his own.
On the ropes
April 1996 Wins bronze medal at European Championships but misses out
on place at Atlanta Olympics after losing box-off
October 1996 Turns professional
October 2002 Beats Julio Pablo Chacón in Glasgow to win WBO
featherweight title
March 2003 One-sided points win over Wayne McCullough
July 2003 Loses title on split points decision to Manuel Medina
November 2003 Knocks down Medina four times to regain title
March 2004 At his best, stopping Walter Estrada in four rounds
June 2004 Cleared of assaulting builder in pub toilet
September 2004 Bound over after grabbing policeman by throat
October 2004 Booed as he stops Samuel Kebede in 59 seconds
April 2005 Banned from all pubs in East Kilbride for six months
November 2005 Beats Nedal Hussein on points in what turns out to be
last defence
March 2006 Pulls out of title defence against Joan Guzmán
April 2006 Charged with assault of police in Glasgow pub
May 2006 Arrested outside nightclub; pulls out of defence against Gairy
St Clair in Belfast; checks into Priory clinic
October 2006 Arrested in Málaga, Spain, charged with car theft and
assault. Spends five weeks on remand in Spanish jail
December 2006 Stripped of WBO title for not making weight for defence
against Nicky Cook
January 2007 Boxing licence suspended after failing to attend hearing;
arrested for possession of diazepam. Fined £500
May 2007 Arrested in Spain after fight in brothel
July 2007 Declared bankrupt
