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Amir Khan knocks out a pensioner
WORLD champion boxer Amir Khan has floored a pensioner from Gildersome.
Boxing-mad Josephine Nolan was so surprised to get a call from her hero on her 70th birthday she sat down with a bump on her living room floor.
A still shaky but utterly delighted Josie said: “It was really rather wonderful because this man is the WBA light welterweight champion of the world and for him to take time out of his busy training schedule to ring me from America on my birthday was lovely.
“I just want people to know what an amazing young man he is.”
Josie’s love of boxing started as a young woman when she used to watch Muhammad Ali with her mother but it was revived in 2004 when she watched Khan win silver at the Athens Olympics.
“I said then that this young man is going to go far. I think he is great,” Josie said.
“I wrote to him, saying how proud he made me feel, and I have followed boxing ever since.”
Josie has been to see him fight twice, once in Bolton and once in Manchester, and never misses a fight on television.
She does not have Sky so travels to her daughter’s house in Fairburn to see his bouts live, even if that means getting up at three o’clock in the morning.
So when her family decided to organise a surprise for her 70th birthday, they really had no choice but to ring Khan’s manager and ask if the boxer might do something special for his biggest fan.
On Josie’s birthday they went out to lunch and then back to her house where the whole family waited for the phone call, a call that did not come.
Finally they said goodnight and Josie’s daughter Angela Harvey handed her some cards from Amir Khan.
Absolutely over the moon, Josie was clearing the lounge when the phone rang.
“A man said he was phoning to wish me a happy birthday, “ Josie said. “I thought I recognised the voice and at first thought it was my son playing a trick.
“When I realised it was Amir I just started shaking, I had to sit on the floor, but it was such a lovely phone call and it just made my day.”
They chatted about their mutual love of boxing and his busy schedule and now Josie is planning a visit to his Bolton gym where she hopes to meet him.
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