CYRUS CHRISTIE’S uncle Errol inspired him to stay away from a life of crime — and make his name as a World Cup star.
The Middlesbrough right-back goes into the Republic of Ireland’s play–off against Denmark on Saturday still carrying the heartbreak of Errol’s passing.
Errol was once England’s boxing captain and in the Guinness Book of Records as the only amateur to hold ten titles.
The former middleweight boxer lost his last and greatest fight, aged 53, on the same June day this summer that Cyrus helped Ireland to a vital point against Austria.
A few days earlier Christie had said his farewells to Errol in St Christopher’s Hospice, London, before joining Martin O’Neill’s squad in Dublin.
He said: “That day when I visited him, I guessed it was probably the last time I’d see him.
“My uncle had 100 tumours in his body and how he lasted so long was a wonder to everybody.
“But we had all known he was nearing his end and I was determined that, before I headed off on international duty, I would say my goodbyes.
“We all knew the end was close but when I walked off the pitch to be told the phone call had come through while I was on the pitch — there was still shock.
“There was such a sense of loss. I was broken-hearted, not just because of how much he meant to us all as a family, but also because of what he stood for.
“And not just in terms of his great boxing career, but in the way he also fought racism and bigotry and violence.
“How, in the later stages of his life, he worked tirelessly to keep kids out of prison and to lead a good life. He knew this one notorious gang near where he lived in Lewisham.
“And he would spend hours talking to them, trying to make some of the members of the gang see a way out of it all.
“I found out later that one of the kids he had worked so hard to convince to change his life went down for 20 years a few months after my uncle’s death.”
Christie, brought up on the same Coventry estate as Errol, knows that it would have been too easy for him to go in the wrong direction.
The defender, 25, who began his career at his home-town club before joining Derby and then Boro this summer, will win his 16th cap in Copenhagen on Saturday.
He said: “I had a difficult time at Derby but in the last few months, despite my uncle’s death, I’ve fallen back in love with the game.
“Now I have the chance to help Ireland finish the job of getting to the World Cup finals.
“The thrill of it all has helped ease some of that heartache.
“But what will always stay with me is how my uncle helped me stay on the straight and narrow.
“And how not to let racism embitter me and twist me.
“The use of the ‘N-word’ was very familiar to me when I was a kid — even when I’d play on a Sunday morning. As you’d beat an opponent, even when I would only be 12 or 13, you’d hear parents screaming, ‘Stop that f****** n*****’.
“Around where I lived, growing up, there were weapons everywhere, bad people carrying knives.
“I saw a lot of my friends go to prison because there was a lot of crime. You see things, bad things.
“Just as my uncle Errol found out, like his brothers and my family, you grow up on an estate where you might be the only black family and bad things could happen.
“But my uncle Errol was always talking to me, like the rest of the family, and they helped me to do good things with my life.
“I was lucky because I always had the right kind of people around me and I always had the guiding light of my uncle.
“I know that back in the Seventies and Eighties he suffered a lot of trials and tribulations.
“Back then racism was a whole lot worse than it is now and he went through a lot.
“But he never turned the other cheek. Not as a boxer or as a human being.
“He was always someone who tried to see the best in a person, who would fight to try to change their views, make them more tolerant.
“My uncle Errol was a true hero throughout his career and in his life as a whole and he’ll always be my inspiration.”
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