Widely regarded as one of the best British boxers never to have won a world title, the man known as ‘The Bomber’ is now coaching at Nottingham School of Boxing in St Ann’s.
It’s a return to the grassroots of the sport which made him a legend, in the city where he was born and grew up, first catching the eye at Radford Boys Boxing Club.
Jake Meskell and Ed Henderson met Herol Graham, to talk titles, comebacks, survival and spotting superstars.
“When I came in to the club, I said there’s a kid in there tonight and he’s good, he’s moving around, and I was showing him some stuff.
“His dad said ‘thank you’ and I told him he could be a champion if he sticks to it.
“His dad wants him to be good at school first and I said ‘I am with you, school first boxing latter’.”
This is the Herol Graham of 2017 – tutor, mentor, and eagle-eyed coach at Nottingham School of Boxing.
The modern Bomber is still instantly recognisable as the man who made his name in the 1980s as a slick southpaw schooled by legendary trainer Brendan Ingle in Sheffield.
The lithe frame is still there, as is that warm but determined look in his eyes.
But it’s been a long and not always happy journey that has led him back to regular coaching in his home city.
“A good mate of mine, Marcellus Baz [Nottingham School of Boxing founder], has given me the opportunity to do something and I don’t want to forsake it,” says Graham, now 57.
“I always wanted to do something in boxing, I was always within the gym.
“Nottingham School of Boxing is giving me the opportunity to get back into it, we are going to sit down and work out how we are going to do it.
“Everyone is going to be different but it is about training them to be a champion, British, Commonwealth, European or world champion even better.”
Graham arrived on the boxing scene in the late 1970s, going undefeated in his first 38 fights, and winning the European Middleweight Title in 1986 with his distinctive style of graceful balance, ghost-like movement and punching accuracy.
Herol attributes much of his early to success to Ingle.
“I’d already got the style but Brendan would teach you other things, how I should be acting,” he said.
“When I went out [in town] Brendan would say ‘look after yourself, don’t say the things you don’t want to say’.”
It’s also fair to say some of his training wasn’t too orthodox – but it was effective.
“We went to bars and someone would say we have ‘Bomber’ Graham who is going to do an exhibition of boxing, whose going to take him on tonight?
“The next thing you have ten or twelve people who wanted to take me on but I couldn’t hit them, I just had to move out the way, it was so so funny and we had a laugh and that’s where I think I learnt a lot of my skills with Brendan.”
Winning the British light-middleweight title in 1981 in Sheffield, the city he was training in after moving away from Nottingham, was a big moment for Herol.
He said: “It was massive with Brendan again, in this case it was Pat Thomas, a welsh guy, a cagey guy but when I boxed him and won, it was magic.
“Things started coming alive and happening, winning a British championship is a big thing so it goes on to bigger things.”
Graham, who grew up in Radford before boxing took him to Sheffield, attributes his famous nickname to childhood friend, Terry Miles, rather than a vanquished opponent.
“I was a fast runner and when Terry would go chasing me, he would go to my mum and say he’s gone bombing off down the road so I can’t catch him.
“So it came from Terry who was in the navy with the ships so bomber came out of that.”
Adjusting to life outside the ring has been tough following his retirement after his final unsuccessful world title fight in 1998. In 2011 he released his autobiography ‘Bomber: Behind the laughter’ in which he talked about a battle with depression.
“Because I had to finish, it was like saying ‘no more’, that’s the depression side of it, you just go lower and lower, and I got into a state,” he says.
“I tried taking my own life, I couldn’t handle what was going on.
“I was drinking and going out and it got to me but I got stronger and I got wiser, with people helping me, I got through it.
“If Karen Neville [his wife] wasn’t around then I wouldn’t be around now, she came up to Sheffield and took me back down to London, she did save me, I owe her a lot.”
The Bomber is now focused on helping to coach at the Nottingham School of Boxing, visiting the city three days a week from his London home – and his dream is to help the club produce a world champion.
“I have dedicated twenty years of my life to boxing.
“I have had help from a lot of people, I owe those people but you owe it to yourself to look after yourself.
“You are number one, I have got to be number one for myself.”
