The St Pancras Boxing Club sits at the foot of a modern block of flats in a triangle of north London between Camden Town, Chalk Farm and Kentish Town. Parts of the area have been gentrified, parts of it have not.
The boxing club is a sanctuary for local kids, as boxing clubs often are. It is an escape from the knife crime and drug deals that blight some of these streets and drive many residents to despair.
If a sporting hero is someone who puts everything on the line for what they do, who dedicates themself to their craft, who gives back to the people around them, who glories in the achievements of their team-mates, who is brave enough to climb into a boxing ring and is a role model for those who wish to follow, then Sherif Lawal was a quiet hero in this place.
He was in his late 20s and an example to the younger boxers. He arrived every evening at around 5pm and warmed up on one of the cross-trainers to make sure he was ready for the 6pm boxing session. He pounded the same heavy bag and skipped rope in the same spot in the gym, near the ring that stands at the far end of the hall.
Lawal loved it here. In a way, it saved him, too. He was stabbed when he was a kid growing up in White City and had moved to a flat near Essex Road in Islington to escape gang violence.
Middleweight Sherif Lawal lost consciousness after being struck on the temple in May
He began training at the club in 2012 when he was 16 or 17. It was just fitness at first, but then the club coach, CJ Hussein, saw he had talent and asked if he would like to move up to boxing classes. Before long, he was being entered into amateur fights.
‘After a couple of years of him coming three days a week,’ Hussein recalls, ‘I said to him, “Do you want to box?” He said, “If you think I’m good enough”. He came up to the next class.
‘It’s one thing telling a kid to box, but once they get hit things can change. He thrived. He loved the vigorous training. He boxed at middleweight, 75kg.’
He liked to wear vibrant colours in the gym. Sometimes, he would wear different-coloured trainers on his feet. But there was nothing flash about Sherif, nothing boastful. When you ask people about him, they say he was humble and hard-working.
He had trained to be a gas engineer, but he had also started working towards a career as a mental-health nurse. He was studying at North Middlesex
University and working at St Luke’s Hospital in Muswell Hill. The other fighters looked up to him because of the way he worked and carried himself. His attitude was exemplary.
When Hussein arranged a night out with other boxers to celebrate Lawal’s birthday at a restaurant off the Edgware Road a few years ago, the owner offered Lawal a complimentary glass of champagne. Lawal waved it away as politely as he could. He said he didn’t drink. He was not a big puncher, but he was a clever fighter.
Lawal was treated in the ring before being rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead
‘He was very stylish, very technical, with a classical boxing style,’ says Hussein, who began entering Lawal in amateur competitions. He fought at places like the Roundhouse in Dagenham, the Coliseum in Ilford and Alexandra Palace.
He was part of a St Pancras contingent that Hussein took to Aldershot to box against an Army team. He boxed in competitions in Portugal, France, Denmark and Finland. He fought at club shows and in town halls. ‘He had one bout in a show at the Nobu Hotel behind Selfridges,’ Hussein says. ‘He beat a kid from Dale Youth that night.’
Lawal did not have the same kind of dreams that the top fighters have. He did not walk out into his garden every morning to stare across the London skyline at the Wembley Arch and envisage himself fighting in the main event there, as Daniel Dubois has been doing in the build-up to his fight with Anthony Joshua on Saturday.
But that does not mean he did not dream. Sherif compiled a decent amateur record. He won more than half of his 40 or so bouts, but was frustrated by some of the decisions that went against him in the amateur game.
It stung him that he had not won a London title or a title at one of the big amateur competitions, like the Haringey Box Cup or the modern equivalent of the ABAs, the National Amateur Championships.
He knew that the younger boxers in the gym, such as Derek Chisora’s highly-rated nephew Jermaine Dhliwayo, had excelled in the amateurs and wanted to validate their admiration for him by winning a belt.
And so, last March, at the age of 29, Lawal decided to turn professional.
‘Sherif tipped for top in pro game,’ a headline in the Camden New Journal said. The article called him a St Pancras ABC stalwart. ‘The Sherif is in town,’ it read, ‘and he’s ready to take a shot at making a name for himself within the professional boxing ranks.’
CJ Hussein (right), saw Lawal’s talent from a young age and trained him along the way
His first bout was due to take place at York Hall in Bethnal Green on March 30, but in the end he made his debut at Harrow Leisure Centre on May 12 in a fight against Portuguese boxer Malam Varela, who had won one of his previous five bouts.
There were a couple of Albanian fighters on the card and the leisure centre was full of their fans. It was a capacity crowd. Hussein thinks Lawal would have been paid £2,000 for his debut fight. He and Varela were the first fight on the card.
Hussein remembers it being hot at the leisure centre when he walked out to the ring with Lawal. The coach had arranged a pair of fancy boxing trunks for him to wear for his debut, but Lawal insisted on wearing the St Pancras Boxing Club colours. ‘I felt emotional about it,’ Hussein says. ‘I was so proud of him.’
Lawal was not nervous. Things were different, of course. He was not wearing a headguard or vest, as he would have done in the amateurs. He was scheduled to fight over six rounds of three minutes. But he was in superb physical shape and was excited about fighting in the pros.
The first three rounds went well, Hussein says. Lawal was in control. Then, in the fourth, Varela caught him with a hard blow to the temple. Sherif seemed stunned and staggered a couple of steps before sinking to all fours in the middle of the ring.
The referee, Lee Every, began a count but abandoned it.
Everyone knew immediately something was very wrong. It was something about the way Sherif had fallen. It was clear that what was happening was about far more than a punch. Hussein had leapt through the ropes before Every stopped counting.
Paramedics were in the ring quickly, too. Hussein had rolled Sherif into the recovery position and now they began to give him CPR. He was quickly transferred to an ambulance and Hussein rode in it with him while he was taken to Northwick Park Hospital nearby.
The rest of the fights at Harrow Leisure Centre were abandoned. Some of the St Pancras fighters went to the hospital to wait for news. Soon afterwards, they were told Sherif had died. Chisora volunteered to be one of those to make the grim journey to Islington with Hussein to tell Sherif’s mother and three sisters that he had passed away.
Nearly five months on and the club and the community it represents so nobly are still in shock. His funeral only took place a few weeks ago after a long investigation into the cause of death. Hussein has been told it was ‘natural causes’. It is thought he died of a heart attack.
The gym was closed for a week out of respect and the hallway leading into it became a shrine to him, piled with flowers and tributes.
‘He was a lovely human being who found his passion in life and worked hard to achieve his dream,’ said Ben Stinton, who trained with Sherif. ‘He’s one of the most hard-working individuals I’ve ever met. He was the first in and last out. It was an honour to train alongside him.’
Hussein has been told Lawal’s (pictured), who was 29, cause of death was ‘natural causes’
Sherif’s wire-mesh locker, by the side of the ring, has still not been touched. It is still crammed with his sparring gloves, tape and pads. None of the other fighters sit in the corner of the changing room where Sherif always sat. Even his half-empty bottle of shampoo sits on the shelf above his seat.
In the hallway leading to the entrance to the club, the red, white and blue Red Diamond 10oz boxing gloves that Sherif was wearing the night he died hang next to the posters and pictures that line the walls. An image of Sherif walking to the ring hangs opposite.
‘This is a community gym,’ Hussein says. ‘I make sure the kids are safe when they’re here and when they’re fighting away from here.
‘After the fights, I drop everyone at their houses so their parents know they are back. I always take the kids out to the fight and I always drive them back home.
‘That night with Sherif, I never took him back home. I couldn’t take him back home.’