BOXING: The face of 2013?

Reared in a UDA stronghold Carl Frampton is, by some distance, Ireland’s best chance of a world title next year. Sportswriter of the Year Ewan MacKenna spent the day with him in Tiger’s Bay, the Belfast enclave he is changing with every punch.

TUCKED tight under a woolly hat, Carl Frampton’s mind is all over the place as the weather’s icy fingers claw at the morning air. First off, he can’t find where to validate his parking ticket and when he finally does, he loses it on the way to the car. Inside, his two-year-old daughter’s toy guitar is making an almighty racket in the back seat and he doesn’t know how to stop it. Later he’s to celebrate his fiancée’s birthday and between then and now there’s some sparring to get through. These short trips home to Belfast from his training base across the water are taking their toll, but he doesn’t flinch when he says it’s so close to all paying off.

Finally, as he turns the key in the ignition, he pulls himself together, apologises for “my head being up my arse today”, and asks where you’d like to go to talk.