Muhammad Ali and I share a birthday, 17 January. I crowbar this fact into any conversation about the greatest sportsman of all time. It’s a tenuous link but I care not a jot and bask in the reflected glory.
I was born 27 years after my idol, in Middlesbrough. Our small town on the north-east coast relied on the steelworks for employment. Everybody had a father, brother or uncle who worked there. For me, childhood was innocent, though for my older siblings, it was different. Racist violence was rife. Yet my earliest televisual memories are of Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan, an Urdu-language programme, and Muhammad Ali’s fights.
