An in-depth feature on Sean O’hagan – Josh Warrington’s father and trainer
Sean O’hagan is a man of many talents, as John Evans discovers
I LIKE FRAMPTON AND THE HARDEST THING ON THE NIGHT WILL BE WATCHING HIM GET BEAT”
MY speciality? Roasted pork belly. I do it in soy, honey, and brown sugar and a couple of other secret ingredients. I do it on a bed of onions and green peppers and it comes with a sweet potato mash with one or two other bits added. It’s absolutely delightful. So simple, so plain, but you wouldn’t believe it. It’s amazing.”
Not a dish you would immediately associate with a man who declared that he couldn’t wait to celebrate his son’s world title victory with ‘a kebab and half a bottle of rum.’ Meet Sean O’hagan. Dad, comedian, trainer of IBF featherweight champion, Josh Warrington, and, it turns out, an excellent chef.
“We didn’t have a right lot when we were kids but I think when me and Josh’s mum separated - incidentally we’re very good friends and see each other regular because we’ve got a daughter who’s autistic so we have to work together - and we didn’t have much, I kind of taught myself. I got sick of eating the same bland food,” O’hagan told Boxing News. “I’d ask people’s advice and pick up little tips here and there and it’s become a hobby. It’s good to be able to cook. If you can cook, you’ll never go without. It’s all done with the cheapest cuts of meat.
“It’s all about timing and the delivery. There’s a lot in common between cooking and boxing. If you’re no good at cooking, don’t bother with boxing.”
There is much more to O’hagan than meets the eye. His larger than life persona isn’t an act for the cameras. In much the same way that critics spent years simplifying Warrington as little more than a super fit workhorse, his appearance and the constant stream of jokes have overshadowed his determination to create something better for his family and the Yorkshire nous behind his work.
O’hagan has successfully prepared Warrington for battle 27 times but it took until this May and a dominant display to snatch away Lee Selby’s world title for people to finally look through the almost ever present cloud of cigarette smoke that surrounds him and pay attention to just what he and his son have achieved.
Should the pair combine to beat Carl Frampton on December 22, a little over one week away, the plaudits are certain to get much louder.
After spending years working in the dark underbelly of Leeds, O’hagan is now being paraded under the floodlights at Elland Road and recently posed for the flash bulbs on the red carpet at the premiere for a film charting Warrington’s road to the world title. For a man who spent more time than he cares to remember hawking 2am taxi fares and working in the abattoirs - “if we were late, we’d get put on the tongues” - the change of scenery is nice but amounts to little more than an upgrade in working conditions. A job is still a job.
“It’s alright. I don’t get above me sen [myself] with it. At the end of the day it’s still work isn’t it? It’s been a gradual change and we’ve grown with it,” O’hagan said. “What you can’t do is let it all change you. Don’t pretend you’re something you’re not and I don’t. I still say things as it is.
“I’ve had to do some things in the past that I’ve hated doing just to make a living. Doing double shifts in the cab and taking stick and shite off people. The family don’t have to do that now. I’ve worked in one or two restaurants and cafes. Taxis and abattoirs. I’ve been a doorman. I wasn’t too good at that to be honest, getting filled in on a weekly basis. Anything at all to turn a quid. I’ve probably spent most time working as a cleaner. I’ve worked in local factories, a bit of warehousing. Anything at all to make a living.
“I haven’t changed at all. Everything still has the same value to me. One thing it has done though, I got a kid a signed glove not long ago. He’s in a wheelchair and he has all sorts wrong with him. A couple of days later his mum and dad sent me a letter saying thank you and a picture of him when he got his glove. The little lad is racked in pain and you can see him wince when he goes over a bump but he’s there smiling with his glove. I can do things like that now. I can stick an extra £20 in the charity box and that sort of thing. I like that.
“I’m still what they call an Enhanced Passenger Transport Assistant. Kids with disabilities and adults with learning difficulties go around on the city council bus and we pick them up and take them to various learning centres and skill centres. I’m one of the few that drives too so I’ll do the driving and we escort kids with illnesses.
“It breaks barriers down. I don’t get carried away with things. I’m no film star and, as you know, I’ve always been a good looking fella anyway.”
Leeds is renowned for fanatically supporting its own but during Warrington’s rise, there were mumblings that he was succeeding in spite of his father’s presence in the corner rather than because of it. As apprenticeships go, O’hagan’s had to be hands on. Fitting in training around work and without a solid grounding in professional boxing, he had to quickly devise ways for his 18-year-old waif of a son to be effective against bigger, stronger men in the small halls and away corners of the northern circuit. They have made mistakes and enjoyed success but O’hagan and Warrington can now go about their work safe in the knowledge that their method works.
“I had a little bit of involvement in the sport previously but it was a fun thing really. While I was working as a doorman, a lot of time was working away and I was down south a lot in the 1980’s. You’re only working four days a week and there’s nowt to do of an evening so we’d go to the gym and have a little knockabout on the bags,” O’hagan remembered. “That built up into doing a bit of sparring and then it went to what they call white collar fights nowadays. I had a few of those and wasn’t very good at it to be honest. What I did learn was how to not get beat up.
“People say, ‘He’s not done owt,’ but tell that to Enzo Calzaghe and Angelo Dundee. I think it’s all about being good at what you do, studying it, and having an eye for it. Josh is deceivingly strong for his appearance and weight. Look at his record and he hasn’t stopped many but the people
I LIKE IT WHEN THE KNOCKERS SAY WE’RE GOING TO GET FOUND OUT. FOUND OUT ABOUT WHAT?”
he has stopped have been quality. He’s been groomed. He matured very late did Josh. We didn’t go out of our way to get journeymen from Lithuania and Nicaragua. We have been in with some good quality kids going right back through his career. He’s learned a lot and I think by not stopping those fellas it improved his skillset. He’s got a lot more in his armoury than people give him credit for. Josh is a pretty efficient fighter. He doesn’t waste a lot and he doesn’t get hit much.”
In August, O’hagan and Warrington ventured to Belfast to get a final first-hand look at Frampton before beginning their own preparations. For Warrington, that means weeks of hard, gruelling work but O’hagan thoroughly enjoys creating a plan and pitting his wits against the man in the other corner. With Luke Jackson safely despatched, every pair of eyes in Windsor Park focused on Warrington as he climbed through the ropes and looked the Irishman in the eye for the first time. Meanwhile, O’hagan and Frampton’s trainer, Jamie Moore, shared their own private moment.
“We caught each other’s eye and I shouted up to him, ‘You’ve got a lot of work to do.’ Jamie knows it’s a hard fight,” remembered O’hagan whose father was born and bred on the Falls Road in Belfast. “Remember this fight is a voluntary, not a mandatory. We could have had the number 15 ranked Italian but we said we’d fight Frampton. I love outwitting them. I like it when the knockers come and say we’re gonna get found out. Found out about what? It’s boxing. It’s supposed to be competitive. I like it when I can sit back and say ‘Follow that’ and not give people the opportunity to say I told you so. We do get shot down quite a lot, even by some people in Leeds. Everybody in Leeds who trains boxers has had the same opportunities as us, we’ve just done things in the right way.
“That’s what I get from it. Outwitting them and being able to say that we’ve shown them again.”
“I’m not calling Carl in any way or trying to talk him down. He likes to control the distance by bouncing in and out and he tries to walk you on to single shots. We’re a bit smarter than that. Nobody has really seen how we box. They think that what they’ve seen so far is what Josh is about. I can assure you it’s not. Frampton likes a fight but what people don’t know and haven’t seen is that we like a fight too and Josh is very, very good at it. If somebody is standing in front of us and the time comes to go and get them out, then we will.
“Sometimes I’ll let him go and sometimes I’ll play it safe. I played it safe against Selby because there was a lot riding on that fight.”
For a chef to rise to the top of their profession, they must master something which cannot be seen or tasted. In the kitchen - as in boxing - the art of timing is crucial. If elements of a final dish arrive on the plate undercooked, then with a little more time, they can still achieve their potential. If even one aspect is overcooked, then it is almost impossible to salvage. Of course, boxing imposes much harsher penalties than an irate customer sending back their meal.
“This fight is all about timing but I like Carl and the hardest thing on the night is going to be watching him get beat and I say that with every hope that they both come out of there with everything they went in with. I’ll tell Josh to take it a little bit steady because it is Christmas. We’ll beat him up but just little bit, it won’t be nice for him to spend Christmas with black eyes.”
Back to the kitchen. If Warrington manages to unify the featherweight division in 2019 and O’hagan gets the call from Celebrity Masterchef, how would he go about impressing the three judges at stove-side? “Oh, the pork belly. It’s run very close by my homemade kebab. I do lovely marinated chicken kebab. That comes with the usual trimmings. Oh, and my home made Lebanese bread. Oh, and I do…”