Matthew Macklin: A world boxing career built on Tipperary hurling

Pro boxer Matthew Macklin was only 15 when the GAA organised to fly him back to Ireland for a divisional hurling final.

Ballingarry in Tipperary is his mother's home place. He'd been a summer fixture at wing-forward for the minors before returning to school in Birmingham. 

Huge chucks of childhood were marked off within the parish confines. One of his heroes, John Leahy, was from the next parish over. Another, Liam Cahill, played senior with Ballingarry and Tipperary. 

Liam was a few years older, but they'd hang out together, hurl together and eventually Cahill would go on to achieve at the highest level; an All Star in 1997 and an All-Ireland winner in 2001.

So when the 15-year-old Macklin sat on the plane waiting to return and face Mullinahone in the final, the future didn't feel like it was pointing towards a career in boxing. 

Going right back, Macklin used to return and hurl in Féiles in the colours of Warwickshire.

By the time his teens rolled around his ability marked him out for a place on the Tipperary U14 team. There he played beside future stars like Eoin Kelly, and that day in 1997 he would face him in the final.

"I remember being nervous," he says, "because I had been back in Birmingham a few weeks and I was worried about my touch. But once the game started I was fine. I hit three of four scores and we won.

"It's my best hurling memory. Winning the final, beating a team with Eoin and Paul Kelly on it."

Macklin's hurling curve

The final minutes are closing out in the recent All-Ireland semi-final between Tipperary and Galway and Matthew Macklin is sat in the stand in Croke Park, living every play.

He counts players like Lar Corbett among his friends so the pinch of defeat is acute. 

He pauses now when asked if such a game make him wonder what might have been, in terms of his own career.

"Yeah...I've had those thoughts," he says. "Sometimes sat in an Irish pub in Birmingham watching a game. Probably, because boxing is a lonely sport. You don't share it with 14 other people. You miss that team spirit, the collective of doing it for a parish club or a county team and everyone being from there."

An elite among his profession, Macklin and others like Liam Cahill believe his hurling curve would have risen to inter-county level had his family returned to live in Ireland.

Boxing is a lonely sport. You don't share it with 14 other people. You miss that team spirit, the collective of doing it for a parish club or a county team.

A plan, years in the making just didn't materialise for practical reasons.

"I was up at the level for the eight weeks when I'd return for the summer," he says.

"I could more than hold my own with all of them. Within my age group I was picked from Ballingarry to play with Tipperary U14s.

"I wasn't hurling all year round then and with more exposure I would have grown more in confidence and the personality traits that have made me strive in boxing at a world level; you never know but I think so."

The seasons came and went and he'd roll into town and steal in for scores from half-forward. 

At 15, he'd close friends on the Tipp minor team beaten in the 1997 All-Ireland series but he invaded the Croke Park pitch that year when the seniors beat defending champions Wexford in the semi-final. Leahy was playing, and Liam Cahill.

Then they lost the decider to Clare.

Talented

Today, Cahill manages the Tipp minor hurling team. In recent years he's linked up with Macklin for world title fights in Madison Square Garden. 

"As a hurler he was extremely talented," says Cahill. "He'd come for two or three months in the summer and was a very quick learner.

"Looking back, he had all the attributes of an athlete and he reached a serious level at that standard then.

"He was very genuine, unbelievably honest and had ferocious courage. I've no doubt had he played regularly and had exposure to the right coaching, he would have hit great heights as a hurler because the same things mark him out in his career now."

Macklin was boxing to a decent level through those years too, out of the Small Heath club in Birmingham.

Some weeks after that divisional final, a Birmingham Select team were boxing an exhibition in Leitrim. Macklin scored a second round stoppage. 

Stood at ringside was the Ballingarry minor hurling manager Martin Maher. 

As soon as the bout was over, Macklin got changed and he and Maher drove to Tipperary for a county semi-final meeting with Golden/Kilfeacle which was scheduled to take place the next day.

"We threw it away," say Macklin reflecting on it now.

He was accepted into the famed St Kieran's College in Kilkenny too, but the move was pushed out so the family could all return together. But before long he got settled back into Birmingham life, school was out for good and another career took over. 

He remembers picking up a hand injury in a hurling match and it being one part of a bigger decision to concentrate on boxing and the ABA championships.

Macklin is due to return to Ireland again in the coming weeks ahead of the All-Ireland minor hurling final between Tipperary and Galway. He's already been spotted as a spectator at training this summer.

"The last time I picked up a hurl was just to puck about in Ballingarry, probably going down to watch the minors.

"I don't have a hurl in the house in Birmingham; there'd be no one to puck about with. But sometimes I think I might start playing again when I retire, for Warwickshire.

"It would be more for a hobby, for a bit of craic more than anything, but it would probably start to get serious again too."