CALLUM SIMPSON used to fit Kell Brook’s shoes but now he wants to fill his boots.
Barnsley’s 27-year-old super-middleweight put himself through college with a part-time job in a menswear shop where Sheffield’s former welterweight world champ would pop in for free gear.
Simpson would have to race up and down stairs to cater for his celebrated fellow Yorkshireman.
But now the tables have turned and Brook will drive 12 miles up the M1 to support Simpson, in his bid to dethrone dangerous British and Commonwealth champ Zak Chelli.
Ahead of Saturday’s shootout at Simpson’s beloved Barnley’s Oakwell stadium, he told SunSport: “Between the ages of 16-18 I worked part-time, while I was still in college, in a clothes shop that sponsored Kell Brook.
“When Kell would come in I would have to wait for him to pick all the shoes he wanted, run upstairs to find them all in his size, then loosen all the laces so be could slide them on, like Cinderella.
“We would get free tickets for his fights when they were at the Sheffield arena and my mates would always tell me ‘that’ll be you one day’.
“And now I am signed with Boxxer and Sky Sports and Kell has messaged me to say he will come over and watch.
“So going from loosening his shoes to having him at ringside will be a nice and surreal moment. But it’s all come from hard work.”
Simpson continued to subsidise his training and fighting with work in fashion right up until last year when he broke out of the small-hall circuit.
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He’s timed his 14-0 form perfectly as the new Saudi money flooding into the sport is giving some of these brave men the fortunes they deserve.
But boxing fans should remember the blood, sweat, tears and honest toil they all go through to get anywhere near the top.
“This stuff doesn’t happen overnight,” the down-to-earth lad said.
“When I had my first area title fight in 2022, my first 10-rounder, I was training twice-a-day and working 45hr weeks, Saturdays and Sundays.
“For that fight I weighed-in at Friday lunchtime and rushed into work to make up the time, then boxed on Saturday and worked all day Sunday.
“My second fight was a four-rounder in 2019, on a Josh Warrington undercard at Leeds arena and I worked the next day.
When I had my first area title fight in 2022, my first 10-rounder, I was training twice-a-day and working 45hr weeks, Saturdays and Sundays
Callum Simpsom
“But because I worked in a busy store, not tucked away in an office or on a building site, I was having lads come up all day looking puzzled.
“They were asking me if I was really the bloke they had seen box the night before and what the hell I was doing there trying to sell them jeans and trainers.
“Because fans often think that if you box on TV then you are instantly a millionaire, like the footballers, but it’s far from it. Nothing comes overnight in boxing.”
Simpson first caught our eye when he walked into a show as a VIP fan wearing an outrageous pink and furry jacket and sunglasses.
It looked like he was the latest boxer to full victim to the glitz-and-glamour charade that ruins so many young talents.
I know exactly what one you mean and I only wore it because I had just bought in Milan – and that sounds posh but it was only in H&M over there!
Callum Simpson
But he put us right perfectly, explaining: “I know exactly what one you mean and I only wore it because I had just bought in Milan – and that sounds posh but it was only in H&M over there!
“I love fashion and clothes, I have always worked in it too. Training and dieting is so regimented and strict and boring that any way to find a bit of fun is important.
“Me and my girlfriend can’t eat and drink whatever we like or go wherever we want, there’s so much sacrifice.”
But when pressed on whether he wears the same Hollywood clobber back up in Barnsley, he laughs: “Er, I managed to have it on once for about 15 seconds.
“It was a cold day and I grabbed it out of the back of the car but my mate saw it and said ‘there’s no way you are wearing that’. So I walked around town freezing.”
