Michael Gomez was a talented featherweight with the world at his feet but his meteoric rise was derailed by his activities outside the ring. Yet he was lucky to be alive at all; born in a car crash into a penniless Irish traveller family, every day was a fight for survival. Then, when he discovered an aptitude for boxing as a child, he was soon knocking out older lads to pay for his dad's booze. Later, on arrival in Manchester, his family became notorious thieves, buying and selling to survive in a city soon in the grip of gang violence. A fateful encounter with legendary boxing coach Brian Hughes proved a turning point; soon Gomez was knocking out opponents for a living and earning enough to buy his family a home. Yet old habits died hard; as the purses got bigger and his reputation grew, the temptations of Manchester nightlife proved impossible to turn down. If his life had been fictionalised, people would believe it far-fetched; he was charged (and later acquitted) of murder, spent 48 seconds clinically dead after being stabbed, attempted suicide and saw his long-suffering wife Alison finally give up the ghost and leave him. Perhaps the question should be how he is still here at all... Acclaimed sports writer John Ludden has brought to vivid life Gomez's dramatic 39 years on planet earth and ghost written one of the most compelling stories in British sporting history.
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