MUHAMMAD ALI

DUBLIN 1972

‘It was the start of summer 1972 and Muhammad Ali was in Dublin training for a fight against Alvin Lewis. I flew over to take photographs and interview him for the Daily Express.

‘A year before these photos, he lost the Heavyweight Championship of the World to Joe Frazier in what was billed as the “Fight of the Century”. When I met him for these photos, he was in the middle of building his global crusade to recapture the title.

‘Ali was great to photograph. He paid no attention to me and was either training or raving about being the greatest – or he’d just sit in a room and say nothing for hours, watching training films of himself. He was a funny type of bloke – he was either all giving or saying nothing. He was completely focused. When I started to ask him questions for the interview, that’s when he blew up! He swore and said, “Are you writing a book on me?” And his brother, who was there, said, “No, he’s just asking really interesting questions,” because I was asking what type of music he liked and what books he read. Ali got suspicious because no one had ever asked him those types of questions before. I remember he said he listened to Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, that type of thing.

‘He just created a stir – you knew when Ali was in the room. When you talk about legends and what defines that term, he had it. He was a magnetic character – in person, in the ring, in a chair watching fights. When I took these photos in 1972, he was already a legend. They just don’t make them like that any more.’