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Curtis Woodhouse

The former Sheffield United, Birmingham City, Peterborough United, Hull City and Grimsby Town midfielder turned boxing champion told Andy Mitten about his very eventful life so far.

“I was born in Beverley near Hull and raised on a council estate in Driffield, a market town of 13,000 north of Hull. We were the only black family for miles and I’d get a lot of name calling in the street. I was football mad and supported Liverpool. Kids usually go for the most successful team of the time and, being born in 1980, that was Liverpool in my formative years. I loved John Barnes.

I liked boxing too, especially Mike Tyson, Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank, but football was my passion. I had trials with Sheffield United at 12 and was offered an apprenticeship at 16. I was paid £42 a week and trained every day. It was all I’d ever wanted to do.

I was a late developer, but within a year of starting my apprenticeship I had grown physically and mentally. I matured quickly as a player too and before I knew it I was in the first team at 17.

No player ever forgets his debut and mine was against Crewe in the Championship. The boss said: ‘Get warmed up, you’re coming on.’ It was daunting and surreal, but a high point. I was in a good team with Jan Age Fjortoft, Dean Saunders, David Holdsworth and Paul McGrath.

With their help, I found it an easy transition going into good team and I did well. I was made Sheffield United’s youngest ever captain at 19 and the youngest to win player of year when I was 18. Then I won four caps for England’s under 21s - proud moments.

In 2001 I was sold to Birmingham City. The Blades have always been a selling club, but I felt I needed a change too. My game had fallen off and I wasn’t playing as well as I could.

I signed for Trevor Francis and enjoyed playing under him. We reached the play-offs for promotion to the Premier League but started the next season badly and Steve Bruce replaced him. He wanted his own players and I fell down the pecking order. I started to fall out of love with football and wasn’t as dedicated as I could’ve been. I was young, I’d signed big contracts and had money. That took away my hunger.

I started to enjoy the nightlife too much. It got so bad that football started to get in the way of my social life. I had money and spare time. I should have knuckled down to my football, but instead I was out clubbing.

I went on a 44-day bender while still a Birmingham player – that’s probably another record too. My brother was living with me and I came home from training one day and said: ‘Get your passport, we’re going on one.’ We went international: Scotland, Spain, Cyprus. Nobody knew where I was. The PFA tried to contact me, as did my club. I was the opposite of professional. Steve Bruce finally got hold of me.

‘Where are you? asked my manager.

‘I’m on the piss and I’ll be back when I’m back,’ I replied.

He was screaming down the phone and I hung up. I’ve not seen him since.

I was served with several warnings in my absence. The PFA gave me my rights, which were limited. My contract was terminated and I wasn’t bothered. I didn’t want to play football. I felt relief. In hindsight, I should made sure I was paid what I was owed.

There wasn’t a moment when I felt out of love with football, but like a man and woman who drift apart and divorce, that’s how I felt about football. I realise people might struggle to understand how I could fall out of love with the game, but once it became a job I did.

I’d spent three or four months out when Barry Fry contacted me. He was Peterborough manager and as mad as me. We got on well and I was his player of the year and captain. He promised me a transfer at the end of the season and then went back on his word so I downed tools and played at 50%. Peterborough were not a good side and 50% was sufficient.


I joined Hull City in 2005 under Peter Taylor who’d been my boss for England under 21s. They were my hometown club and had been promoted to the Championship. It was my last throw of the dice as a footballer and I gave it one last shot. I was 25.

But I couldn’t rekindle any passion. My candle for football had gone out; I knew the gig was up.

My old Sheffield United youth team manager Russell Slade was in charge at Grimsby Town. He said to me: ‘Play here until the end of the season and go out on a high.’ I thought it’d be good to end my career with a coach who’d started it, so I did. I played my last professional game at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium in a play off final which Grimsby lost.


Then I decided to be a boxer. My wife thought I was mad. But it’s what I wanted. I knew I was in my physical prime and didn’t want any ‘what ifs’ later in life. I had no amateur experience as a boxer and everyone said I’d need that first. But I do things my way. I turned up at a gym in Peterborough and people knew me as I’d played football there.

Then my dad died of a stroke when he was only 51. He’d been with me 90% of the time on trips to games and for trials. Losing him was a big impact on my life, but I remained determined to become a boxer. I wanted to become British champion.

It took me a very long time to get good at it because I wasn’t a natural boxer, but I was prepared to do the work. I was a gifted footballer who lacked dedication. I wasn’t a gifted boxer but I did have the dedication to succeed.

Then I lost my boxing licence. It came after I was found guilty of assaulting a police officer at my brother’s birthday in Bridlington. I pushed the officer on the shoulder. It wasn’t the crime of the century, but it doesn’t look good in print. I was sentenced to do community service in Hull, cleaning hedges near on the banks of the River Humber. I got a great view of the Humber Bridge, but you quickly tire of that.

It was the second time I had community service, the first after a fight in Cardiff after the 2001 Carling Cup final between Birmingham (I was cup-tied) and Liverpool.

After doing my second community service, I got my boxing licence back once I’d completed my hours. I also returned to football, playing part time with Rushden & Diamonds and Mansfield Town to get some money in to help with my boxing costs.


With no amateur fights behind me, I went straight into my first professional fight as a welterweight. I figured that if someone was going to punch me in the face then I wanted paying for it. My legs were like jelly walking to the ring and I was nervous, but while I didn’t box well, I won on points and got a purse of £2,500. From that I had to pay my manager 15% and my trainer 10%. I worked out that I was on less than the national minimum wage, but I was buzzing that I was now a professional boxer. Nobody was saying: ‘Here’s the next Floyd Mayweather’, but I had something.

I won my first ten professional fights. I was on peanuts but I’d been earning a fortune in football and not enjoyed it. Now I was enjoying what I’d done as I worked toward my aim of being the British champion. I was learning on the job and didn’t expect to go 20 fights unbeaten, but the losses never deflated me.

I fought at Bramall Lane where I’d played. Eventually, I became British champion, the first footballer to do so. Then I retired, happy.

In 2011 I started getting abuse on Twitter. Serious abuse which lasted months. Being called a shit footballer or a shit boxer was no bother to me; I get that every day. But one troll was making threats to my family. I’d just done the school run and he said: ‘You want to be careful where you send your kids to school’.

In that moment, I decided to put a £1,000 bounty on his head. Within minutes, people started to send me DMs and one man said: ‘I know who this guy is.’ That was the beginning of his demise. The person who told me didn’t want the £1,000 - a couple of pints was enough.

The man who knew his address wouldn’t give me the house number. I don’t think he wanted to be an accessory to a crime. But, armed with the street name, I drove 47 miles to Sheffield and started putting my movements on Twitter. I drove a sponsored car with my name on the side. I was looking for any twitching curtains as I drove around his avenue, like a shark circling. Twitter was going ballistic, but I also realised that if I did anything then the police would have all the evidence they would need.

The troll, who I called Jimmy Brown pants, apologised online. He was ridiculed. A week later, I was asked to go on the Loraine Kelly show. Lorraine came in the dressing room before the show and explained that the troll would be there. She said: ‘I just want to know that you’re not going to attack him because we have no security’.

I told her that if he chatted shit then I would knock him out on live television. She said he wanted to apologise – and he did. I accepted the apology. I also got £2,500 for going on the show.

After I stopped playing football, I did my coaching badges and started managing at Sheffield FC, the world’s oldest football club, Goole and Hull United, where I did well. I also worked on a book about my life which comes out next week.

I’ve got good experience in football and life too. My path has not been a conventional one, but with my love for football back, I’m looking for an opportunity to manage again. I’m 36, there’s plenty of time.”