New Year Honours 2021: Curtis Woodhouse gets BEM

Curtis Woodhouse switched from footballer to boxer in 2006 before twice retiring from the sport

Former British boxing champion and Premier League footballer Curtis Woodhouse has been awarded a BEM.

The 40-year-old played 368 games for clubs including Birmingham City and Sheffield United before turning his hand to professional boxing in 2006.

Woodhouse, who won the British super-lightweight title in 2014, initially believed the honour was "a joke".

"First thing I thought was 'there's no way this is real'," he said.

"Still, after I got the confirmation, I rang round a couple of mates and said, 'listen, if you're messing about you've done me a kipper'. But they said, 'don't know what you're on about'. So, it's real. I can't believe it."

Woodhouse described his professional boxing days as being tough and "an eye-opener"

The retired sportsman, from Driffield, East Yorkshire, said it took him three days for the award for services to football and boxing to "sink in".

"This definitely put me on the back foot and it really humbled me. It was a weird feeling."

Woodhouse, who also won four caps with England at under-21 level, retired from football aged 26 before switching to boxing.

"Growing up in Driffield, it wasn't a very multicultural place at the time. So there was quite a lot of name-calling going on and, up until about the age of 10, 11 or 12, I think I probably had 50 fights and lost all 50.

"So, I was never one of them who people would look at and say, 'he's definitely going to be a boxer'.

"Everything happened so quickly in football. I went from obscurity to earning ridiculous amounts of money really, really quick and completely lost my focus and lost my way - and at 26 years of age was retired."

Woodhouse won four caps with England at under-21 level

Woodhouse described how moving to boxing was "such an eye-opener".

"Probably after 30 minutes of being a professional boxer, I was straight on the phone to my football coach saying, 'is there any chance you could take me back? These lads are a little bit tougher than I thought'.

"If I look back at it, I would've done things so differently, but I was so naive and so stupid, really. I thought it was going to be a walk in the park... didn't realise it was going to be so, so tough."

Woodhouse finally retired from boxing in 2018 with a record of 24 wins and seven defeats and is now looking "to be a successful football manager".

"I've got so much to give back," he added.