Spurs stories | Sam Gilley - boxing champ on his love of Spurs as he prepares to step back into the ring

As a boxer currently on a trajectory towards British and world title bouts, the feeling of ‘my legs went’ isn’t one Sam Gilley wants to experience too often.

Yet the Southern Area, England and Commonwealth super welterweight champion, nicknamed ‘Magic Man’, felt exactly that when he swapped the ring for an experience at pitchside at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last year.

Not long after securing that Commonwealth belt in one of the fights of 2023 against Louise Greene, Sam was there on the touchline, metres away from his football heroes, speaking to presenter Paul Coyte and 60,000 fans on the stadium screens ahead of our Premier League clash against Newcastle United.

“When I did that interview before Newcastle, my legs went,” he told us. “I thought it was a good job I wasn’t fighting! I was so nervous. That in itself was a dream, to be pitchside with the players warming up right behind me. The little kid inside me wanted to go up to Sonny and go, ‘alright mate?’. The players were right there. That was special.”

Almost a year on, and a frustrating spell out of the ring, Sam, 30, ranked #2 in Britain, defends his Commonwealth belt - and his 17-1 record - against Jack McGann at the famous York Hall, Bethnal Green, on Friday evening - hopefully taking another step towards a British title shot on that long journey to the very top.

“That’s the next target, the British title, the Lonsdale belt,” he told us then. “When I was a kid, I had a Blackberry, and my screen shot was the British title, so that’s the one...”

As for Spurs, as is often the case, it’s a family thing for Walthamstow-born Sam. “Yep, the whole family is Spurs, and everyone goes to the games,” he said. “When I couldn’t go, my mum took my grandad, my uncle goes every week, a couple of the family and friends have Season Tickets. When there is a family party, the first thing that’s brought up is Spurs!

“My uncle Ricky took me to my first game, Newcastle at home, we won 2-0, think it was Jurgen Klinsmann and Les Ferdinand. I was around three. My dad told me the other day that he found the report from that game.

“I remember David Ginola played, but that’s about it. I asked Ricky about it recently, ‘what was my first game?’ and he showed me a few old photographs, this scruffy little kid at the Lane. That was my first time at the Lane, and it’s the first time you love something! The smells, the burger van, going through the turnstiles, all the people, the hustle and bustle.

“As a kid, you love it, walking up the stairs, the excitement... then your heroes walk out onto the pitch, that feeling, nothing replicates that. You feel part of something. That was the start for me, and I can’t remember a season where I haven’t been since then. I’m 30 now and I still get the same feeling, walking in, seeing the team... ‘come on!’, nothing else brings that out of you. Football, Spurs, it just does something to you!”