As Mirror Sport’s Black History Month mini-series continues, boxing star Cheavon Clarke provided an insight into leaving his native Jamaica to live in the UK. The Caribbean is known for its chilled and relaxed nature which the 31-year-old will go on to describe. After 11 years living in Stonehenge near Montego Bay, fourth-largest urban area in the country, he and his sister were offered an opportunity that would change their lives forever. “I was born in Jamaica in 1990 and it was cool, we were free people, everything was calm and was done at a calm pace," he began.
“I grew up in Jamaica until I was 11 years old. We didn't have as much recreational organised sports and all the up-to-date technology but it was a great experience growing up there. There were a lot of life lessons learnt to help you navigate life and get the best out of it. In 2002 my dad asked if me and my sister wanted to come and visit the UK and we said ‘yes we’d like to try it.’ We were meant to go back to Jamaica and when my old man asked us again we said ‘it’s cool here’, it’s alright, and it just went from there.”
Despite going through a significant change in his life, Clarke adjusted well to life in Britain and settled in Kent after moving from Peckham in South London where his father lived. In the early/mid 2000s, very few black people lived in the southeastern England county, and it was at school where Clarke sadly experienced racism for the very first time. “The first time I experienced racism was in school and I didn’t know it was racism, I never experienced it in Jamaica," the boxer shared.
