A couple of Sundays before Christmas and Barry McGuigan is slaloming through heavy traffic heading for Bournemouth, using his old rallycross skills to slide into gaps. The yarns are flying, reaching back beyond Loftus Road and the winning of his world title and the 12 minutes it took him to get from the dressing room to the ring before the fight even began, to the first boxing shows he ever saw in freezing halls along the border and Derry, hearing for the first time the thudding sound of glove on flesh that thrilled him.
At a hotel in Bournemouth, Chris Billam-Smith is sitting with his family and his trainer, McGuigan’s son Shane, passing the hours to fight time against Mateusz Masternak. Seven years ago Billam-Smith
