But Egan was not ready for the media glare, the financial opportunities his new-found brand offered or the hero status he was suddenly afforded. Instead, Kenny Egan went off the rails.

Those of sensitive, conservative disposition would surely balk at Egan’s frank discussion of pornography, prostitutes and one-night-stands. And then there’s the utterly callous manner in which he treated his family and a long-term girlfriend.

The Kenny Egan that emerges is both a vainglorious, misogynistic lout who did his best to drink away his talent and a sympathetic figure brought up in boxing’s brutal world who was unequipped for life post-Olympics. The book documents his stuttering rise through the ranks of the sport that shaped him, taking the reader inside the ring for those lonely moments where there truly is no hiding place.
where there truly is no hiding place.
Boxing aficionados will appreciate this insight and the accounts of harsh training regimes in grim settings such as provincial Russia. But it’s Egan’s battles off the canvas that captivate most and elevate the story of a man whose career has largely stalled since Beijing. And looming large is his very own annus horribilis — 2009 — the year he almost lost everything.

My Story begins in March of that year when Egan and a friend went on a bender in Dublin that culminated in alcohol marathon on the other side of the Atlantic.
That he was supposed to fight in an international contest that weekend didn’t register with him — he simply disappeared, much to the distress of his mother Maura and to the intrigue of a media he had quickly come to despise.
His “lost weekend” was rife with farce. Leaving his Olympic medal behind the bar of a city-centre Dublin pub for safe keeping, he walked into his bank and withdrew €5,000, then high-tailed it to the airport with no luggage and no destination in mind.
Fast forward some hours and Egan and his friend found themselves coatless in freezing, snowy Manhattan, but with their back pockets stuffed with notes.
It was one of several escapades the boxer enjoyed/ endured that year. One day, he had been supposed to take his father to the hospital, but shirked this responsibility in favour of a trip to Malaga. Once again, Kenny just disappeared. He barely stopped drinking as soon as he hit Spain pausing only to have sex with a 40-something Liverpool woman he had met in the bar.
Egan’s description of the encounter is laced with nastiness. “She wasn’t great. I was exhausted and I genuinely didn’t want anything from her, but I got bored and ended up giving her a lash anyway.”
It mirrors his descriptions of other sexual encounters including the one, several years earlier, when he had intercourse with a Filipino prostitute: “She had a head like 100 miles of bad road. I’d paid up though so I went ahead and did the dirty deed anyway.”

To his delight, he says he was inundated with offers and found himself having to schedule his week, Tiger Woods-like, to accommodate the ladies who wanted a piece of the Olympian.
Not surprisingly, his long-suffering partner Karen walked away. Egan now realises how shoddily he treated her.

Sober for 14 months and a regular attendee at AA meetings, Egan says he is trying to put his life back together again. He attributes his rehabilitation to his parents, figures in the boxing world and his current girlfriend, Sharon. There’s clarity now, where there was none before.

“Sometimes I wish Beijing never happened,” he writes, “because it seems cheap to sell yourself for just a single piece of silver.”

16/02/12 Depression, Blackhall Gaels & My Black Dog

THURSDAY, 16 FEBRUARY, 2012

Today was a very productive day. It is always a relief after I talk to my Doctor. This time however I will not have to wait another month to see him as I am due back in two weeks so that alone was good news. I do not want to talk too much about what we chat about for the time I am with him as I think some things should remain private…. maybe at a later date when I am looking back on all this and talking how I beat it, please God. I will tell you that I was very apprehensive this morning because I was worried if nothing came of my meeting, where would I go from there. But it went well, I am now on a higher dosage of medication, hence the reason for my return in two weeks, to monitor my progress. Also the torture last night and this morning as I had run out of tablets, aww I was in the horrors. Thankfully that has all been sorted now and I can look forward with hope. He told me to try, however tough it may be, to get out and about and back to work. Even if it is just a short walk or visit a friend or go to the cinema. Do something that makes me feel good. So I have to take this on board, I cannot continue to sit in, playing the computer, by the fire. And the main thing has to be NO alcohol, that is the one thing I will have to be hard on myself about. Alcohol in itself is a depressant and even though I have known all along how bad it is, especially for me, I have been unable to cut it out completely.

So the way I am thinking now is that even though Sunday past I made a big breakthrough by going to the pub without any dramas and enjoying the time with my friends, that will be it for me. A nice way to finish on it. Go out on a high so to speak. And at least I enjoyed it with my closest friends and I got home safe. I will still socialise with them but I know now that the tablets will not work with the alcohol, it is defeating the issue and that if I ever want to get better this is one major sacrifice I must make. Note to self.. Stay at it this time Robert! Some of the worst things that have happened me over the past few years have happened whilst I was under the influence. And I have many regrets but luckily people stuck by me. And I intend to repay them. I might as well talk about some of them bad times before I move on and put this subject to bed. Before I do though I would just like to say I never considered myself an alcoholic or never physically abused anyone because of alcohol (maybe I did on a football pitch but that was without any drink on board!!) but do know that alcohol was and will always be bad for me. We don’t agree.

Me, enjoying a beer on our travels of Australia. No Worries

Alcohol And Me:

I should have known that all was not well when for a few months before I broke down in front of Linda, if I was out and had a lot to drink there would always be some kind of drama. I just wasn’t the same person anymore and drink brought out the worst in me. People say that I am a very non-confrontational person and I lock everything up inside then if I have a few drinks the truth comes out. So maybe I had years of built up anger inside of me and it just started coming out over time. One of the bad memories I have from them days is the night a few of us went to the pub after a BBQ at the mobile I lived in for three years. I had enough to drink from the BBQ and did not need the pub. But I could never say no after a few drinks. Myself, Linda and my sister Louise went to the chinese take away after the pub and of course I started messing, annoying the staff, so much so that one of the other customers took offence and the two of us ended up out on the street, with my on the wrong end of a LUCKY punch, ha. I can laugh now. But back then i couldn’t, it was out of character and I payed for it the next day, with a fat lip and a well deserved scolding from Linda and my family.

As I mentioned on an earlier date in this blog, I lived alone for three years in a mobile home out the back of my parents’ house, it was my first experience of living out and though Linda stayed over when she could, most nights I was on my own and this lead to me drinking a lot, especially during the long periods I was missing work. I know there was no need for it and it was mainly out of habit and boredom. I thought I was drinking to feel better when in actual fact it was making me feel worse and the next day I could not leave my bed, it wasn’t even from the effects of a hangover but the pure feeling of guilt from having drank the previous day or night. I would say to myself that was it and I was giving it up but come nightfall I would be having another one. Of course this wasn’t every night but it was far too common. These were my darkest days and I feel nowhere near as bad now days. They were the only times I ever thought of self-harming and again that would be only after a drink. So I urge anyone in a similar situation not to drink, especially at home and alone. Moving back home was the best thing that ever happened me and that is only in the last six months, it probably saved my life. Not all days were bad in my mobile and I have some very fond memories of my time there with Linda, Cisse and Kiwi, memories I will cherish forever. As well as putting all these things out to the world, it is helping me get it off my chest, in case you are wondering why I am choosing to reveal some things. I am not looking for sympathy or praise.

Another night after a lot of drink in Maynooth, I poured a bottle of Heineken over the biggest, strongest looking man in the pub, for no reason. I think he may have bumped into me or something. Thankfully he turned out to be a gentle giant and seen my stupidity and drunkenness.

Of course there are probably many more small stories to tell, not to mention all the times I broke Linda’s heart and even though I feel low again lately, I will never go back to them days. I am looking to the future, without drink. If you are depressed, do not drink alcohol.

All them stories are dwarfed in comparison to the main reason I cut back on alcohol and now eventually decided to give it up… That faithful night in an UN-named night club in Maynooth!! I had been drinking most the evening with a friend in Kilcock and ended up in Maynooth and about the an hour into my time there that is when my memory goes and what happened will forever remain a mystery. When I woke up, I was in Blanchardstown Hospital after having been knocked out. I spent the night there and was released the next morning with a bad bruise to my temple, a soar nose and some more cuts to show for my troubles. I was attacked by two bouncers, kneed in the face and thrown against the door. Then I was left lying, alone on the footpath outside. And guess what? All this was for no reason (for a change). I know this because a woman got in touch with me on Facebook next day, a total stranger and told me she seen everything. I am so grateful to this lady because if she had not come forward, I would be still blaming myself for what happened. She said she seen them coming up to me, one grabbed me, held my arms behind my back whilst the other ”gentleman” proceeded to knee me in the nose and then they used my head to open the door before throwing me out on the street and closing the doors behind. Thanks lads, true gents! Again thank you to this lady and her friend for coming to my assistance and calling the ambulance and the guards and thanks to Niall for coming to the hospital with me. I never pursued this assault since, I just wanted to move on. That night hit me hard, at a time when things were going OK and it set me back a bit. I never want to put Linda or my family through that worry again. I never want to have to make a call home from A&E in hospital and I never want to be a statistic again, the stat that 200 beds are taken up a night in hospitals due to alcohol related problems. It was a bad night/time, the worst of my life and had it not happened I may not have this attitude towards alcohol. An attitude that has me giving it up. I want to remember it through good days with my friends, beside a fire, watching sport on the TV. . ”That’s My Two Cents”

Me enjoying a cup of tea with Sheena

Nearly two decades ago, the tiny African nation of Gabon was the site of the darkest chapter in Zambian soccer history.
The finest team that Zambia had produced boarded a plane in the capital city of Libreville on its way to a 1994 World Cup qualifier. The plane took off before plunging into the sea, killing everyone on board and robbing a nation of its heroes.
Last Sunday, the current national team ensured that Gabon would play another role in the minds of every Zambian when it became the site of their greatest soccer triumph.
The Copper Bullets, as Zambia’s team is known, won their first Africa Cup of Nations title, 8-7 in a penalty-kick shootout over heavily favored Ivory Coast.
The preceding 120 minutes were scoreless, as the underdog Zambians traded blows with the Elephants. The pivotal moment came midway through the second half, when Didier Drogba, the Chelsea striker who is one of many European club stars on the Ivory Coast team, fired his penalty shot well over the bar.
The tension surrounding such an emotional game meant that each chance came at a premium, but at the end, it was Zambia that withstood the pressure.
To their countrymen, many of whom are deeply spiritual, the juxtaposition of past sorrow and present joy went a long way in healing old wounds.
“It’s a huge relief,” Benedict Tembo of the Zambia Daily Mail said in a telephone interview. “Finally, the 1993 victims can rest in peace knowing that, almost two decades after the crash, a generation of players put in their best throughout the tournament. That dream, that mission, was accomplished.”
Nineteen years ago, the current soccer federation president Kalusha Bwalya was one of the lucky ones. He was a star striker on the squad in 1993, but was playing club soccer in the Netherlands and avoided the fatal trip. It is his vision that shaped the present day team, one that pays homage to the spirit of those lost.
Bwalya echoed the message of the fans at the final that held a sign that read, “Honoring the 1993 Crash Heroes in Style.”
“We have given tribute to the class of 1993,” Bwalya said. “I’m absolutely certain that the boys are not far from the form that the 1993 players used to play. It’s wonderful for us to be able to come back and try to bring the memories of the 1993 team back on the field.”

Sorry I have strayed from the subject but if you want to read more please follow the link below:
http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/15/after-tragedy-zambia-triumphs/