Meathman's Diary: Let’s not forget boxer Darren

John Donohoe

Every time the Olympics comes around, one name springs to mind. The late Darren Sutherland. Back in 2008, when the 26 year-old Navan middleweight brought home a bronze medal from Beijing, only 20 Irish Olympians had won medals, including that year, his boxing team mates Kenny Egan and Paddy Barnes.

It is hard to believe that next month marks the 15th anniversary of the passing of Darren in London, where he had gone to pursue a professional boxing career. After his inquest, where a coroner recorded the cause of death as hanging before returning an open verdict, the Sutherland family called for more help for people transitioning from amateur to professional boxing.

Darren first featured in this newspaper in summer 2004, when St Peter’s College in Dunboyne was rightly proud of its student of the year. He had returned from England to study as a mature student, and took the brave step of joining his sisters at their school, to obtain a Leaving Certificate he had missed out on when pursuing a boxing career in England as a teenager. Four years later, he kept the students of St Peter’s College enthralled as he traced his story, without drawing a breath, from Blanchardstown, Sheffield, Dunboyne and Dublin City University, through to Beijing.

On top of that, he was humble about his Olympic achievement, admitting to being embarrassed by all the fuss over the story which had become ‘so big’ that he himself found it hard to believe at times.

Darren’s bronze medal earned him a Meath Chronicle Sports Personality of the Month Award, and he attended a lunchtime get together in Knightsbrook Hotel, Trim, to receive his award, with his Olympic medal in tow.

Full of chat, he was happy to display the bronze medallion to everybody. He signed boxing gloves for a charity auction, and was genuinely delighted to be in the running for the overall sports personality award, despite the fact that he had already entered Irish sporting immortality as the holder of an Olympic medal. By the time the annual awards came around in February, he had already fulfilled part of his dream and turned professional, and was in England training for his first bout, which he went on to win. He would win all four of his professional fights.

Talking to Paul Howard in the Irish Times recently, Darren's sister, Shaneika, said being professional wasn't what he thought it would be. “I think how the dream was sold to him, versus the reality was very different .. things took a turn very quickly.”

Sadly, Darren didn't reach out, and when he wasn't happy with the scene he was part of in London, couldn't see a way out of the career choice he had made.

Hopefully the words of the Sutherlands following the inquest have been heeded. And let us not forget that great character that he was.