BACK IN BUSINESS
Chris Slatcher was the fighter who inspired Froch to get better, writes Matt Bozeat
ASKED to name his earliest boxing ambitions, Carl Froch answered: “I just wanted to be as good as Chris Slatcher.”
Froch went on to become one of British boxing’s all-time greats, while Slatcher quit fighting and has become a successful coach.
The Leicester Lightning gym on Slater Street produced four national champions this season, Isaac Huczmann adding
Tri Nations gold to his Schools title in Dundee earlier this month.
Vinny Huczman, his cousin and a 2019 European Junior bronze medallist, won Youth honours earlier this season, while clubmates Eishay Parmar and Zara Aitchison won Junior Development and Youth honours respectively.
The title Slatcher wanted to win when he fought was the ABA title – now known as the NAC title – and it took him years to forgive boxing after he missed out.
Slatcher was an accomplished amateur boxer when Froch first walked into the Phoenix gym in Nottingham.
“Carl looked up to me when he was a kid,” said the 48-year-old father of Molly and Poppy.
“I was the England boxer in the gym, I was the benchmark.
“But Carl’s mentality was always that he wanted to be better than me. He didn’t want to do what I was doing, he wanted to do better. He wanted to be the best in the gym. Carl wanted people talking about him – not me.
“I remember (coach) Dale Mcphilbin saying: ‘He isn’t listening, he never does’ – but he would still win and you would be thinking: ‘Where did that come from?’
“Carl could lose the first two rounds and finish it in the third. He always had that ability to perform when he really needed to. When he was being written off, or when it was do or die, you could count on him. When people thought George Groves would beat him in the rematch, that’s when you saw the best of him.”
Slatcher sparred “hundreds” of rounds with Froch.
“I was a bit older,” he said, “so to start with we just moved around. We didn’t spar properly until he was older.
“Carl was a good schoolboy, but he really started to show how good he was until he was a junior.
“He always had that self belief.” Slatcher found the hurt of missing out on the ABA championship hard to take.
“I dreamed of winning the ABAS a million times and then I got what I thought was a bad decision and it really hurt,” he said.
“I never forgave boxing for that.” Slatcher walked away from boxing after qualifying to box for England in the United States.
“I just decided not to go,” he said. “I was still hurt.
“I regret it now, but I got into coaching because I felt I wasn’t finished with boxing. I knew it was too late to box again, so I started coaching.”
As well as his thriving amateur stable, Slatcher trains a few professionals.
He saw Benn Norman crowned Midlands Area flyweight champion in Nottingham earlier this month and says Froch is an example to everyone who walks into his gym.
He said: “I remember Carl going down to London every week and taking beatings off Howard Eastman.
“He had to scrimp and save just to stay down there and he would come with nothing to show for it – apart from a few bruises. He made the decision that boxing was going to be his Plan A and there would be no Plan B and it paid off for him.”