It can be easy to miss it from the main road. Into the industrial estate, past the snooker club and the car-repair place, and through the gates on the left. Then a door opens into a bright and colourful world that tells us a lot about one of the Premier League’s rising stars.
A champion gym is always a place of wonder. There are pictures of Bruce Lee and Muhammad Ali on the walls of this one. There are title belts on display in glass cabinets. Music is playing. There is a boxing ring at the far end and, lining the route to it, a small boulevard of punchbags and kicking pads.
This is the Phoenix Muay Thai boxing gym in Whitefield, on the northern edge of Manchester, and there is sunlight pouring in from the top window. The place has its own personality. It feels alive.
There is something familiar about the framed picture inside the entrance.
It shows a young boy, inside the ring, ready for action. His hands are raised in the classic fighter’s pose. He is staring through the gap between his boxing gloves. Supporters of Manchester City, in particular, should recognise him.
A young Rico Lewis in the boxing ring
Rico Lewis, now 18, has been one of the discoveries of the season since making his breakthrough with the Premier League champions and slotting in so seamlessly that you could be forgiven for thinking he must be immune to nerves.
He also happens to be the son of a former Thai-boxing champion, Rick Lewis, whose role as “Kru Rick” is a useful starting point when it comes to understanding how a boy of such an age, who was still doing his college exams last year, can adapt to the Premier League so quickly. The agility, the balance, the competitive courage, the ability to trust in oneself; so much of it started inside these four walls.
“He’d be in the gym even as a baby,” says Rick. “We’d put him in the corner, watching from behind the baby gates. Then, as soon as he could walk, he was training. He’d seen it from birth and he started fighting at four years old. It’s been there all his life.”
To introduce him properly, Rick’s involvement with martial arts began in the 1980s. He was hooked, fighting his way through every level until he was twice the British lightweight champion, and was allowed to keep the belt because of the number of successful title defences he made.
He wanted the European belt, too, but was never given the chance to add it to his collection. The holder, he says, seemed suspiciously keen “to run away from me”. That stings. And, briefly, the old fighter in him stirs again.
At the same time, we are talking here to a doting dad. There are softer edges to this strongman. His pride is obvious. And not just because of Rico’s achievements, either.
Sacha, Rick’s daughter, is also a Thai-boxing champion and, at the age of 14, has also been climbing the ranks with City’s girls’ team. She, too, operates in the right-back role where her brother excels. It is a sporting family.
Rico with his dad Rick, a former Thai-boxing champion
And these moments are special.
The time, for example, Rico rattled in a shot at home to Sevilla in November to become City’s youngest-ever Champions League scorer. He was 17 then and, for a few indescribable moments, the boy from Bury looked like he could scarcely believe what he had just done.
His father had just been to get some half-time food before retaking his seat. The goal prompted some wild and messy celebrations — “chip confetti” — as food and drinks went up into the night air.
Not all the supporters in the nearby seats knew a great deal about the fella in the No 82 shirt.
“Who is he?”, one wanted to know. That was the point Rick identified himself as the mystery man’s proud dad. The supporters could see the joy in his face… and broke into spontaneous applause.
Perhaps the best way to analyse Rico’s impact is to watch City manager Pep Guardiola whenever he is asked about him. His eyes light up, his expression softens. More than once, Guardiola has finished a eulogy by puffing out his cheeks as if he, too, is astonished by how quickly the teenager has acclimatised to the highest level.
“He’ll be an incredible player for Manchester City in the next few years,” Guardiola says. “We have seen him since day one in pre-season and I said, ‘This guy has something special.’ He understands the game, he’s so clever… if you ask him to do something, he understands in a second. Playing against Liverpool, Chelsea, (Leeds United) at Elland Road. Wow! He’s an absolute reality for us.”
Wow, indeed.
Rico captained City Under-18s to the league title last season, winning their player of the year award in the process.
This season, he has not just shown he can read the game, or that he is strong in the tackle, or that he can bomb forward to join attacks in the style of the modern full-back.
One of the more impressive parts of his emergence is his ability to double up by moving inside as a holding midfielder, in the style of former Bayern Munich and Germany stalwart Philipp Lahm. It is a Guardiola-inspired tactic designed to outnumber the opposition in the centre of the pitch. Rico does it so efficiently, he is keeping Kyle Walker and Joao Cancelo, 40-plus cap internationals with 114 between them, out of the team.
“It’s been a rollercoaster,” says his father. “Yet he is so calm and collected. He had to go off in one game with cramp and walked around the side of the pitch. It was beautiful. The crowd were chanting his name, ‘Rico! Rico!’, and I could see him trying to hold in his smile.
“I see that a lot on the pitch. He will get tripped up, someone will take his legs, and Rico will just turn around with a smile and laugh it off.”
The credit, he says, goes to City and, as well as Guardiola and all the coaching staff, that also means all the various people within the club’s academy setup.
There is no doubt, though, that Rico is also a product of his environment.
He has grown up with Thai boxing. It is part of his life, even if he has to watch old YouTube videos to see his father’s championship glories.
“As soon as Rico arrived in this world, I stopped fighting,” says Rick. “Something went out of me. As soon as he was born, I knew I couldn’t be selfish anymore and that I had a contract with him to be on Earth for as long as possible. I knew it was time to look after this little man.”
He did continue to coach, though.
Now 49, Rick arrives here at the gym early each morning. He works through bank holidays because, as he jokes, this is not a bank. He preaches hard work, positive vibes and good discipline. He knows from personal experience about the confidence boxing can bring to a young person’s life. There is a lot to like.
If things had turned out differently, it is also perfectly plausible his son might have followed him into championship fighting.
The young(er) Rico was a highly skilled boxer: quick, agile, with exceptional hand-to-eye coordination. But he was also a natural footballer and had been showing his ability with a ball ever since he was enrolled on a Little Kickers course near where they lived in nearby Radcliffe.
Lewis has impressed for City in recent weeks (Photo: Tom Flathers/Manchester City FC via Getty Images)
Even at the age of six, Rico was attracting scouts. He was the leading scorer for a team called Prestwich Pythons, playing as a winger-cum-striker. Bolton Wanderers, then in the Premier League, invited him to join their junior system but it was probably inevitable that bigger teams would come in for him.
A talent spotter by the name of Garry Riley arranged the rest on City’s behalf. After that, football took priority.
Ten years on, Rico has just become the youngest Englishman to start a Premier League game for City since Micah Richards, then 17, in 2006. In interviews, he often reflects fondly on his childhood memories of the gym, as well as citing his mother, Stephanie, for her steady influence. He is from the generation who grew up idolising Neymar and Lionel Messi.
His friends and family, meanwhile, can laugh that someone who is so grounded can be so infuriatingly brilliant at almost everything he tries.
The first time Rico played golf, he struck a peach of a drive down the middle of the fairway and watched it roll onto the green. When he had a go at axe-throwing, his first attempt was a bullseye. Some sportsmen are just wired this way. Word has it he is pretty good on the guitar, too.
Yet a picture is emerging of a lad who just takes everything in his stride and lets all the acclaim wash over him. Within a few hours of making his Premier League debut against Bournemouth in August, he was back home, on the PlayStation — like so many other teenagers his age.
Another story goes back to an under-15s tournament in Belgium three years ago, with City’s Belgian star Kevin De Bruyne among the crowd, as one of the smaller players in City’s colours stood out again. Rico missed a penalty against Club Bruges’ youngsters that day but still had the personality to step up again when the game went to a shootout. He buried his kick that time and De Bruyne applauded on the touchline. “Look at his character,” he said to one member of staff.
At City, they still have the pictures of Rico, on tour with their youth team in the United States, shaking hands with the opposing captain and looking up to a player who must be over a foot taller.
Lewis captaining Manchester City at an under-15s tournament
It looks like a complete mismatch but perhaps it helps that, as a young boxer, Rico would often go up against opponents who were older, bigger and more experienced.
Then, like now, it never fazed him.
“Rico has been impressing me for years,” says his father, and now his smile is on full beam.
“It’s about attitude, as well as ability. I always remember Vincent Kompany telling everyone at the academy, ‘Don’t think you have made it just because you’re here’. As soon as I heard that, I knew Rico was at the right place.”
(Top graphic — photos: Getty Images/design: Sam Richardson)
Source: the althetic
