Episode 1158: The Lost Soul Of Eamonn Magee

The Belfast boxer Eamon Magee fought Ricky Hatton, and gave Hatton the first knock-down of his professional career. He was a world amateur junior silver-medallist. He was a WBU welterweight world champion. He has also lived an extraordinary, violent, troubled life.

Eamonn Magee: ‘My father convinced the IRA to give me one bullet.’ Interview by @donaldgmcrae https://t.co/i6VHcUM7Vr

— Guardian sport (@guardian_sport) May 8, 2018

A new book, The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee, written with Paul Gibson, opens like this – “A book? Listen, I’ve been beaten with baseball bats, I’ve had my throat slashed, I’ve been kidnapped and exiled out of the country. I’ve been shot twice, I’ve been in prison and my son’s just been stabbed to death. Amongst all that, I was the welterweight champion of the world while drinking the bar dry and doing enough coke to kill a small horse every night. My life’s not a book. It’s a fucking movie script.”

I used to write about fighters and the below on @TerminatorMagee is one of my proudest achievements. Thank you @RealCFrampton & @donaldgmcrae for providing kind words for the cover.#TheLostSoulOfEamonnMageehttps://t.co/o8sUEUffIK pic.twitter.com/Oi66JSIj4S

— Paul D Gibson (@PaulieDGibson) May 5, 2018

In a wide-ranging, emotional, and at times intensely uncomfortable chat, we speak to Eamonn about his career, about the domestic abuse charges he’s faced, the IRA, his alcoholism, his father, and his murdered son.

Plus there’s Huddersfield’s survival in the Premier League, the simple joy of goalmouth scrambles, Liverpool’s minor task, John O’Shea’s village rearing, and Murph gears up for summertime.

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Leo & Lancaster’s Ego Trick, Sexton > Carter, Ken offers his travel tips for Bilbao and gives us his ‘worst museums of the world’ top 2, and there was a hidden insult in the middle of our Nesbitt-watch from Monday’s show. All revealed HERE ????https://t.co/ahXd6HPWcl pic.twitter.com/qFLBgZNWjN

— Second Captains (@SecondCaptains) May 9, 2018