Jacko warned not to give up the day job! I entered a short-story competition last week - and the judges hammered me!

The rules were simple: Submit a previously unpublished true story about yourself. Max 1,500 words. Prize: £1,000. I delved back into my sporting past and regaled the judges with an inglorious episode from my short boxing career at college.

Here's my effort that garnered "nul points" from the worldwide juries:


IT'S difficult to enjoy your breakfast when you know a fit, strong, aggressive bloke is going to punch you hard in the face sometime before lunch.

This was neither an irrational fear of an unprovoked attack nor a ghastly premonition. It was a planned event, I knew when and where it would happen. It was to be a self-imposed initiation test. A test of my mettle and courage.

I'm certainly not a masochist and whoever was going to land that punch was going to have to earn the privilege. Before that blow landed (and hopefully afterwards!) I would be doing my damnedest to dish out similar punishment.

In short, I was learning to box.

At that early stage of my training I had only recently progressed to light sparring after weeks of gruelling fitness work and practising basic punches and combinations. So far, no one fending off my newly acquired skills had actually fought back. The instructors didn't have to and the leather bags tended not to - which is not to say they didn't nip back at you a bit sharpish if you lost concentration!

I'd been told I could develop into a useful boxer. Despite being dominantly left-handed, I adopted an orthodox stance but could switch to southpaw at will.

Yet one thing was nagging at me. I had no idea if I could actually take a full-on "bloody-hell-this-bloke-means-to-damage-me" punch. I'd been caught accidentally a few times by my fellow students but never at full power and never without the action immediately stopping and accepting the apologies of the perpetrator. And I have to say these innocent tags still hurt like the dickens and made the prospect of genuine combat genuinely unappealing.

So I decided to find out how bad it could be. When it came to a bit of proper sparring, I would deliberately leave myself exposed and invite the consequences.

On the appointed day, despite my undigested breakfast turning somersaults in a suddenly turbulent belly, I was able to see one or two positive aspects as I pulled on my gloves. First, the bloke in the opposite corner was a little lighter than I was and looked just as anxious as I imagined I did. Second, we were given headguards. This cheered me no end. Flimsy as the padding looked, it offered reassuring protection - unless I was careless enough to take a blow straight to the chin.

Which is exactly where he pinged me about 12 seconds into our first round!

All my plans went out the window - as did most of my cognitive processes. I thought I'd have a few rounds toe-to-toe before dropping my guard and taking my medicine. I didn't count on matey-boy flying out of his corner like an adrenalin-fuelled, hay-making demon.

I blocked a flurry of wayward blows, ducked under a hook and was just about to take a step back and wait for his nervous fury to pass. But as I came out of my crouch, I just had time to realise my field of vision was filled with red leather before I saw stars exploding spectacularly all around me.

In the half a second it took my rear to thump Bambi-like on to the canvas, my addled noggin tried to make sense of what was happening. Had the gym blown up? Had something fallen from the ceiling and struck me? And when did my opponent invite another two identical versions of him into the ring?

My disorientation was only momentary and I was soon in full possession of the facts. I'd been laid low by a man who had his eyes closed throughout his entire pinwheeling mayhem and had no idea he'd hit me until he almost tripped over me. As I stood up, he had the proper mix of concern and badly-hidden triumph flitting across his face. Our coach just looked perplexed by the whole sorry debacle.

I suppose, ultimately, I had my questions answered. I knew what a knock-out punch felt like - and I can report even brief unconsciousness is a fine anaesthetic! But my boxing career was stillborn. I carried on long enough to find out what the other side of the equation was like. A few weeks later I knocked my sparring partner out cold. It was the day I called it a day.