Hughes next

ALL IN all, it was not the best week in Barry Hughes' young life, not by a long way.

On Sunday night, Jack McGill was found hanging from a tree in the Cathkin Braes in south Glasgow. Hughes knew McGill. Did him a turn from time to time. Did his nephew a turn, too. Over a hundred grand's worth, in fact. Jack was Scott Harrison's uncle. On Monday evening the police were called to a domestic at Harrison's place in Cambuslang. The fighter had allegedly assaulted his partner, Stacy Gardner. Two officers, one of them a woman, were also assaulted, so they say. Harrison was taken away in a van and remanded in custody in Barlinnie.

In the last year or so since he became his manager, Hughes dropped six figures of his own money trying to help Harrison, trying to fight the tide of self-destruction that washes over him. Hughes, you quickly learn, is the most positive man in Glasgow but he realised through Harrison that some situations are unsolvable, some people beyond help. He cut the fighter adrift a while back. But that's not to say he's immune to the man's suffering.

He's got his own life to lead, though. He tells you that straight. He's got his own reputation, his own business, his own people to look after, his own dreams to chase. He's 29 years old and can't sit still. He ducks and dives and bobs and weaves. He does this in his suit just as he did it in his shorts in the ring when, with all the insolence in the world, he'd wave his right fist in the air at an opponent and say "hey, kid, fancy a blast of the sleeping pill?".

He is one of the great self promoters. Don King's surrogate son. "I've always been strong-minded and positive," he says, chewing on gum and sipping his Red Bull. It gives him wings. "I've always tried to raise the bar. I come from a family that had absolutely nothing. I have no brothers, no sisters and zero family. I'm on my own. I'm a loner. This is my motto: Don't let anybody or anything ever stand in your way. If you live on other people's opinion you'll get nowhere in life because people will always beat you down. Wake up in the morning and tell yourself you're the best when you look in that mirror because nobody else does. Nobody else does. That's my creed."

We meet on Wednesday morning and he recounts the last 24 hours. Tuesday dawned with a furrowed brow and a dilemma. This thing with Mike Tyson was getting out of hand. Tyson should have been in Glasgow last night. An Evening with Iron Mike was set up by Braveheart Promotions, the centrepiece of Hughes' business portfolio which includes a construction company, a security firm, a music management business run by his wife, Jackie, and other bits and pieces.

Robert Carlyle was putting in a guest appearance at the Tyson gig. Hughes and Carlyle are mates, united by a love of boxing and a fascination with Benny Lynch. Hughes has Lynch's boxing mitts and is bidding for his world title cup. When he gets it he wants to get a film made of Lynch's life with Carlyle in the lead role. "Gotta get that cup, though," he says. "The guy that's got it is about 70. He took a stroke and is house-bound. I ring him up. He's like that, 'son, it's in the vault'. And I'm like that, 'away with you, it's in a shoe-box under your bed'. It's guaranteed under his bed but he's heard my name and is holding out. Fair play."

Anyway, Tyson. Hughes is getting heat from MSPs and women's groups. He's had some calls cancelling tables.

"I didn't like the way it was headed so I pulled the plug. Cost me my deposit but it was the right thing to do. We didn't need the negativity for the company. We just want positive energy in our organisation."

Harrison is not positive energy. Harrison is a big lump of trouble whose sorry plight is captured on the front page of the morning's tabloids. "I didn't get involved with Scott to be his manager," he says, addressing the picture of Harrison in the Sun. "Scott was a friend. I genuinely felt for him. I don't like using the word sorry but I thought there was a chance to catch him, to fix him. Almost immediately after he signed up with me he got sent to prison in Spain. Only your true friends stand close to you in the bad times. I done that. But enough had to be enough. I had to say to myself, I'm not a life manager, I'm a boxing manager. I had to draw the line.

"What can I say? There are two ways you can deal with a tragedy in your life with Uncle Jack passing away. I feel some people with problems use upsets as an excuse. I don't know what happened that night (at Harrison's home] but he's now sitting in Barlinnie prison, remanded in custody. Gonna miss Jack's funeral. I just don't see a road of return for him. Will he ever be world champion again? Definitely no. We've seen the best years of Scott Harrison. Will he ever fight again? Quite possibly because there is still that car crash television thing, let's watch to see what he's got left. I wanted to pull back from that. I'd had enough. Let it be, you know? Just let it be."

YOU CAN'T talk to Barry Hughes about his future without first exploring his past. It's all there in the tabloids, truth and fiction. Barry and the love tryst, Barry and the knife, Barry and the gangster, Barry and the Battle of Beanscene.

"What have you heard?" he asks.

Only this...

January, 2004: HUGHES IN DIRTY MONEY PROBE

January 2007: LOVE RAT BOXING BOSS FACES £1M KO

April 2007: BOXING BOSS IN SECRET JAIL SUMMIT WITH DRUGS BARON

July 2007: KNIFE RAP HUGHES IN CITY CENTRE CURFEW

July 2007: SCRAPPUCCINO! GANGSTER BATTERS BOXING PROMOTER IN COFFEE SHOP

October 2007: FLING BLING: HUGHES BUYS £165,000 BENTLEY FOR CHEATED WIFE

March 2008: HUGHES CUFFED IN CLUB, TYCOON IN CELLS

His theory on Glasgow is that some people want to believe the worst. They look at him driving around in his £350,000 Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead and they think he can't be legit. They read stories linking him with imprisoned crooks like Jamie "The Iceman" Stevenson and they see him as one of them. They never look any deeper than surface level and it makes him sick.

"They ask, 'where'd you get your money from'," and he tells them. But do they listen? He says if they stopped being consumed by jealousy and hate for a minute they'd be better off. Not that that is ever likely to happen. "I started off by buying and selling cars. It was easy for me. I had cars advertised in Auto Trader when I was 13 and 14 years of age. My dad had always messed about with cars in scrap-yards. When I was a wee kid I remember he took £50 I had, birthday money or whatever, and he put in £50 of his own and we bought a Morris Ital, black in colour. I remember it well, I must have been six. We sold that car five days later for £350. That gave me the trading instinct. He showed me how you turn a pound into 10. A great lesson."

Like his father, he became a professional boxer. Aged 20, on 10 October, 2000, he had the first of his two daughters. The pressure to succeed ratcheted up when Morgan was born so on top of his journeyman boxing life he increased the ante in business. He bought and sold property, set up a plant hire operation, the security company was formed, followed by a construction outfit. "I left school at 15 with no qualifications, no nothing, apart from a trader's instinct. But some people frown when my name is mentioned. They don't need to say a word, you can just see it in their face. Barry Hughes? Oh. Never mind that I worked all the hours God sent to get where I am, never mind that I took serious financial risks and had the self-confidence to stick it out in tough times. Never mind all that. Because I drive an expensive car I must be dogdy, right? Well, wrong."

Rumours, though. Speculation. Links with bad men. "See these people (Stevenson et al], they watched me boxing when I was a kid, they supported me when I had nothing and now they're going through a bad time I'm supposed to pretend I never knew them? My security firm? If I could turn back the clock four or five years I would never have opened it. It's a successful business now and I won't stop it but it's got a stigma attached to it, a massive stigma. The money laundering thing. I was never questioned, charged or investigated for money laundering. I've screamed it from the highest building. If there was anything to be found it would already have been found. But there's this cloud above me. How can I have these cars and this lifestyle? Cannae be right, eh? Cannae be right. He must be doing wrong. Scotland will forgive you anything but success. That's a true saying."

What Scotland does with him on a charge of allegedly being caught in possession of a knife is for the courts to decide in July. He can't say anything about that except that he feels he's been wrongly accused. There's one thing he doesn't deny and it's clearly a major regret. His brief relationship last year with former Miss Scotland, Michelle Watson, brought his marriage to the brink of divorce. It also saw him back in the tabloids when Bob Malcolm (Watson's jilted boyfriend) rather unwisely gave Hughes too much lip in a nightclub. Malcolm got a swipe of the sleeping pill for his trouble. Claret everywhere it seems.

Husband and wife are now reunited. "I love Jackie, she's a true soldier," he says. "Things are good at home. We're happy."

The tabloids had a field day, though. Why? He's not a major star, doesn't have the profile of, say, a Barry Ferguson-type. Why bother with him? "Because I'm different, I'm unique," he says. "Barry Ferguson? There's a million of him cuttin' about. I'm more exciting to read about than Barry Ferguson. Take a football away from him and he's a plumber. You can write that. He might not even be a plumber. He might be a labourer. That's the difference. Take everything away from me and leave me standing here with absolutely nothing and I'll have it all back in 12 month. I'll drive by you in a Phantom Convertible in nine month just to show you how easy it was.

"If my wife and kids weren't here I'd be living in London now. I outgrew Glasgow two or three year ago. Glasgow should be honoured I still live here."

THE BRAVEHEART has plans. Big plans. He's interested in tomorrow's stars, not today's. Boxing is a lot of what he is but it's not everything. He has footballers on his books, too. Young up-and-comers like the kids at Hamilton and Steven Smith and Ross McCormack. He's taking a boxing show to London and will be the first Scot to do so. He wants to take a show to New York, all the way to Madison Square Garden. He sees an Irish-themed night there on St Patrick's day and doesn't know why it can't be the same for St Andrew's day. The company is only two years old but he's got some tools to work with. Kenny Anderson, Kevin McIntyre, Willie Limond for starters. "I'm trying to get Willie a world title fight before Amir Khan. I'll do it. Kevin was in a rut when I got him. He turned pro the same day as I did and he was feared. Tommy Gilmour had him. I took him over and turned his life around in seven month. He's a local hero in Paisley now. As for Kenny, he is everything you want in a fighter, that boy. He'll be a world champion. You can just feel it off him."

Hughes plans to get in the ring himself this year. Three times and then it's over. No more. He's still convinced he's got the sleeping pill, cocked and ready. He sees it as his last hurrah before Braveheart goes global, before it crosses the border and travels the Atlantic, before the name Barry Hughes is up there with his ally, Frank Warren.

And the begrudgers? He'll wave at them out the window of his Rolls Royce or his Ferrari. Let them alone with their suspicion, he says. Meanwhile, he's got places to go, people to meet, mountains to climb.