The road to boxing for a footballer

You can never fail to look twice every time the name Curtis Woodhouse appears in front of your eyes on a boxing bill.

He's certainly the first ex-Sheffield United and Birmingham captain, as well as a former England under-21 international, that anybody has seen in the ring.

The road from professional footballer to professional boxer is not a well trodden path and, in the modern day, Woodhouse stands alone.

As paths go, if anything, it's the other way round - there are a number of boxers who had promising careers as footballers in their teens before, for whatever reason, drifting out of the game.

For instance, Stourbridge's British cruiserweight champion Rob Norton was on Albion's books as a goalkeeper. In the end, those hands made him a living after all.

But Woodhouse was a footballer from age eight onwards and went on to make his debut as a teenager in 1997 with Sheffield United, where is still the club's youngest ever skipper.

He entered the bracket of a £1million player when he made the move to Birmingham in 2001, playing in midfield under the management of Trevor Francis and later Steve Bruce.

But it was then, still aged just 21, that Woodhouse first realised his hunger to play football was evaporating quickly.

He said: "I don't miss football, I have got to be honest. I miss the 28th of every month, when it's pay day, but I don't miss much else about the game.

"My heart just wasn't in it, I would probably say that from about the age of 21 I had lost the desire to play and I was at Birmingham at the time.

"Loads of people have asked me why and it's hard to put my finger on it but once the fire goes out, the fire goes out.

"Why do people fall out of love with their wifes or husbands? Why does it happen? Sometimes there isn't an obvious answer.

"I think it's because I had been doing it for so long, since I was a young kid, aiming and striving to be a professional footballer.

"Once it happened and it became a job, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. After everything I had built up in my head, I was disappointed.

"I just completely fell out of love with it and didn't want to do it anymore."

Despite all that, Woodhouse has still not officially retired and, even today, non-league Eastwood want to offer him the chance to stay in the game.

They would be his eighth club since leaving Blues in 2003 and they will told the same as the other four teams he has played four since making his professional boxing debut in 2006 - fighting comes first.

So it should - come July 16 his hated rival Frankie Gavin, Britain's only world amateur champion, will be standing across the ring at Liverpool's Echo Arena on a Sky Sports show with the WBA Inter-Continental welterweight title up-for-grabs.

But the 31-year-old is the first to admit he loves a scrap and, with a criminal record as long as your arm, has the scars to prove it.

When Blues were playing in the League Cup final in 2001, Woodhouse had to sit out the game at the Millenium Stadium cup-tied, having already turned out for Sheffield United in the competition.

But the headlines were well and truly his after an almighty melee which saw him hauled before Cardiff crown court, after trashing an Indian restaurant in a brawl with university students that night.

It's no secret he has a history of theft, robbery and affray, with the man himself estimating he has been in over 100 street fights.

Even in his teens, Neil Warnock used to drag him into the manager's office at Sheffield United and accuse him of being in the boxing gym.

Woodhouse, despite being stood before him with a black eye and a fat lip, still denied it.

But all that changed when he fought for the first time, although he soon had his boxing licence took from him after it emerged he had been charged with assualting a police officer.

The British Boxing Board of Control, despite the incident taking place before he turned pro, would not reinstate him until his nose was clean.

Since then, Woodhouse has stayed out of trouble and probably grown up a bit, to boot, but one constant remains - the need to fight.

He said: "I like fighting, it's that simple. Someone once said to me 'if you are going to fight all of the time, you might as well get paid for it.' That's what took me down the boxing avenue.

"Everyone is different, you put some people in a fight and they will run a mile because it scares them, but I have always enjoyed it.

"I have not been in one bit of trouble since I started boxing and that, believe me, is no coincidence."

By Craig Birch