Asif, 42, and his household emigrated to Britain from the mountainous Kahuta area of Rawalpindi, the identical space former world champion Amir Khan, now retired, and unbeaten super-middleweight Hamzah Sheeraz’s households are from. “There have to be one thing within the water,” Asif says.

Together with his grandfather toiling away in Sheffield metal factories, the primary decade of Asif’s life was spent sharing a five-bedroom home with 24 members of his prolonged household.

“There have been 5 or 6 of us in a room,” he recollects.

Looking for an id, to really feel part of a bunch, Asif fell in love with soccer aged 14. Right now, he holds a company field at Sheffield United – however in mid Nineteen Nineties he attended matches at Bramall Lane with out the approval of his father.

“My dad would say soccer is stuffed with racists. He was a taxi driver and all he heard was the p-word, being informed to return house,” Asif says.

“He was one of many abiding generations who did not need any bother, stored their head down and accepted it.”

Asif acquired concerned with “the unsuitable kind of individuals” on the terraces and was thrown out of school after a confrontation with a trainer.

However sport offered the defiant youth with an outlet. Asif spent his childhood taking part in cricket, that includes alongside future England skipper Joe Root for the famend Sheffield Collegiate staff.

Then in 2002 he found boxing and the 6ft 4in cruiserweight would go on to make his skilled debut earlier than retiring in 2012.