Life in cars

Ex WBC Cruiserweight champ and Everton fan talks about parking next to footballers

When I was growing up, my mother pretty much stuck to Volkswagen Polos. After a good couple of years with his business, though, my father remortgaged the house to get himself a black BMW 318i – an absolute dope he was, remortgaging the house to get a car.

My first car was a Rover 200 hatchback. It was great, cost £1,500 from Guernsey Motors. Believe it or not, it was red, but my dad bought it as a gift and probably chose the colour out of spite because he’s a Liverpool fan.

I didn’t have that for long. I then got a Ford Mondeo which was a good little runner; it had 116,000 miles on the clock when I bought it. I think I took it up to 200,000+ by driving to Manchester every day and back for training as well as watching boxing and travelling to watch Everton away – although I wouldn’t go past the Midlands.

After the Mondeo I had a Peugeot 407. I’ll always remember that because I used to turn up at Finch Farm where Everton trains and they would look at me as if I was nuts. I had to park with all the players so I’d be pulling up next to Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and every top car you can imagine.

I’ve only ever bought one car from brand new – it was a BMW 1-Series that was a gift for my missus after I won the Commonwealth title. Someone smashed into that, though, and wrote it off, so we replaced it with a Merc E-Class. That was a lovely car. I’m never one for buying cars outright – it’s just not for me. I’ve always preferred to lease them, and then that way they’re not my headache.

After the E-Class we started to get two cars – one for the wife and one for me. My choice of car for all the motorway driving to training camps in Sheffield was a BMW 3-Series estate. It was the most economical car I’ve ever had. The mileage was fantastic and it was a lovely drive – dead smooth. Everything about the car was fantastic, I miss it even today but it was just a basic 3-Series.

My missus at this stage had a Mercedes GLE because she was driving the kids. I’ve always tried to put them in SUVs in case there was a bang or a nasty smash so they’d be safer.

After that I got her a Range Rover Sport and I moved on to an Audi A7. Then for my last ever camp in Sheffield I had my current car which is a BMW 740Ld, which is absolutely perfect.

I’d say this is the nicest car I’ve had – and I’ve had a few on test for a week at a time. It can do between 600 and 700 miles on a tank, and when I need to get somewhere pretty fast, it can do that too. In Sport mode it just flies.

The one car I’ve always dreamt about, though, is a Rolls-Royce Wraith. I’d love to get my hands on one – it’s the perfect car for me. Don’t get me wrong: I could buy one but I just can’t justify spending the best part of a quarter of a million quid on a car right now.

I guess I have tended to stick to German cars; I was always told as a kid that they were better made, but I don’t know – what I know about cars you could write on the back of a postage stamp and still have room for the Lord’s Prayer.