Former world heavyweight boxing champion Herbie Hide has a new fight on his hands
- trying to stop a teenage boy getting into trouble by letting the youngster train
at his home.
Hide, 37, who is no stranger to controversy having had several court appearances to his name over the years, is using his experiences to try and keep troubled 15-year-old Bradley Saffer, from Gipsy Close, Earlham, on the straight and narrow.
Bradley, who lives with his parents Joanne, 40, and Glen, 50, who has trained Hide for the past nine months, has just served a short sentence at a Young Offender's Institute following the latest in a long line of offences for criminal damage, theft and anti-social behaviour.
Since his release last month the youngster, who was visited by Hide when he was locked up, has been thrown a life-line by the WBC International Cruiserweight Champion who has offered to put him through an eight-week training programme involving running four to five miles a day, swimming, and sparring at the boxer's Bawburgh mansion.
Hide said he has a lot of time for Bradley and wants to see the youngster fulfil his potential instead of wasting his life.
“He got into a lot of trouble,” said Hide. “I don't see that Bradley is a bad person at all. In the area where they live everyone wants to be a gangster, but I don't see him being like that.
“When I was young I was at boarding school. Being who I was in a small city everyone had their eye on me and I saw that in Bradley. I figured if me and him started running and training he would have no time to get into any kind of trouble at all.
“I'm training Bradley and he does whatever I ask him. He hung around and got into trouble, but now he's escaping all that.”
Hide, who has known Bradley for a number of years, said he has become a kind of “godfather” to the teenager ever since the boy was not invited to a children's party because he was deemed a “scallywag”.
“I didn't know what a scallywag was,” said Hide. “I watched Pirates of the Caribbean then I knew what it was and thought that was horrible. I always knew Bradley to be a soft, quiet guy who needed love and attention.”
Hide said he saw Bradley at some traffic lights in Norwich one day while he was driving his Bentley car and called him over.
“He had a gangster cap on and I said 'I like your cap',” said Hide. “He took his cap off to give to me, that touched me. Me and him became friends - he's a very caring kid.”
Hide added: “We're not trying to make him the champion of the world or a boxer, we're trying to make sure he has something to do with his life - try and make him into a man. People do change, people do keep out of trouble and I think he's doing that.”
Bradley, who suffers from ADHD, has been training with Hide for just eight days but already his parents have described the youngster as a changed man.
Mr Saffer, 50, a coach at the Kingfisher Amateur Boxing Club based in Norwich and Yarmouth, said: “He wants to put Bradley right. He's told him the rights and wrongs. Herbie lets him have one day off a week but if he messes up Herbie says that's his lot. He's got a lot of respect for Herbie.”
Bradley said: “Herbie is a really good trainer to work with. He's taken me on runs every morning - we're doing lots of stuff. I look up to him - whatever he says I've got to achieve.”
Copyright Eastern Evening News 2009
