Wally meets... Aylesbury boxer Nathan Graham hoping for knock-out in the FA Cup

By Mike Walters

Published 23:00 23/10/09

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Welterweight prospect Nathan 'De Lick' Graham was up at 5.30am yesterday, preparing for the biggest knockout of his life - in the FA Cup.

And as he pounded the streets for five miles, Graham dreamed of slaying giants on the road to Wembley before the trifling encore of wearing world title belts once worn by Hagler, Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard.

Cup folklore is littered with epic tales of window cleaners, postmen and van drivers defying mountainous odds and bloated reputations.

But rarely, if ever, has a club reached the first round proper only months after coming into existence. And seldom, if ever, has a professional boxer with genuine title prospects been presented with the famous old pot in a clubhouse built on stilts because the ground is on a flood plain.

Graham, 27, is a striker with home-town club Aylesbury FC of the South Midlands League - not to be confused with Aylesbury United of the famous waddling-duck celebration 15 years ago - and son of two-time former kick-boxing world champion Michael Graham.

This afternoon he will lead the line of the smallest club left in the Cup against Wealdstone - who spawned Stuart Pearce and Jermaine Beckford among others - with the winners going into tomorrow's first round draw with big fish including Leeds, Norwich and Southampton.

And he hasn't been more excited since his first pro fight on the undercard of Matt Skelton's British heavyweight title bout against Michael Sprott.

Graham, released by West Ham as a teenager after being part of the youth squad which produced Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe, has scored 50 goals in the last two-and-a-half years.

Now he divides his time between the noble art and the beautiful game, and De Lick has got it licked - but only after the intervention of firm parenting and a stark choice.

Graham said: "When West Ham let me go and I dropped out of football, I began hanging around with the wrong crowd and my dad gave me an ultimatum - take up boxing seriously or sign up for the Army.

"I only had 11 amateur fights before I turned pro with Frank Warren as my promoter, but I'm now with Spencer Fearon's Hard Knocks stable. My pro record is 9-1, and my only defeat was against a late substitute opponent who was 6ft 2in and a stone heavier than me.

"I'm not making excuses, and losing taught me to be humble and keep my feet on the ground, but my next fight is being lined up for next month and I can't wait.

"Normally I won't play football in the week before a fight, just to be on the safe side and make sure I don't get injured, but otherwise I don't have any problems mixing the two sports together.

"At Aylesbury we often play twice a week and train on Thursday nights, but I train as a boxer every day, getting up at 5.30am to go for a run and spending two to three hours in the gym.

"Of course I've had an extra spring in my step this week because the club was only formed last summer, and it would be incredible to go into the hat with the likes of Leeds.

"We've got nothing to lose and everything to gain in the Cup, and getting so close to it that I could see my own reflection just made me think, 'It would be even nicer if we won it!'

"That may be pushing it, but I would seriously love to win a world title in the ring - and why not? If I win my next fight, I get a shot at the southern area title and, after that, you never know... the stepping stones might take me all the way where I want to go.

"Many people made it there before me, so why can't I follow them?"

Graham's Aylesbury manager Mark Eaton admitted: "I think his trainer and promoter are quite upset that he only misses one game before each fight, but the lad wants to play football and we're only too pleased to have him on board. He's a popular boy in the town and all the team go to support him when he fights."

It’s just a thought, Nathan, but why stop at Cup ties? How about a welterweight match-up with football’s other convert to Queensberry Rules, former Sheffield United defender Curtis Woodhouse?

The FA Cup visited Aylesbury as part of the Road to Wembley campaign, sponsored by E-On.