From Manchester City to the boxing ring: Marcus Morrison on Ricky Hatton, playing in the same youth team as Huddersfield Town’s Harry Bunn, and his dreams of winning a world title
The promising light-middleweight fighter talks exclusively to SunSport on what has already been a rollercoaster career
MARCUS MORRISON may only be 23 years old, but he's experienced his fair share of sporting thrills and spills in his life.
Aged 16, he was released from Manchester City Football Club after being deemed "too small."
It led to him never playing competitive football since that day.
But not only did he have something else in his locker, it was something he had excelled in for years before football had turned his head.
For Morrison's "quick hands" were noticed by his father aged seven, and a birthday trip to a local gym saw him take to boxing like the proverbial duck to water.
Marcus Morrison - rising fast
Age - 23
Born - Manchester
Fights - 13
Won - 13 (10 KOs)
Category - Light middleweight/Middleweight
Boxing hero - Sugar Ray Leonard
Interesting fact - Morrison was released by Manchester City as a 16 year old after the club deemed him "too small"
Fast forward to the present day, and Morrison has announced himself as one of the most promising light-middleweight fighters in Britain.
He has 10 knockouts in his 13 fights, his most recent coming within the first two minutes of the undercard.
Related Stories
Speaking exclusively to SunSport, Morrison recounts the day his football dreams came crashing down - something which he says worked out as a "blessing in disguise".
"They offered me a two year contract when I was 16 at Manchester City, but about two weeks later I was called in with my mum and dad and told I wasn't going to be kept on," he said.
"It was just heartbreaking at the time, and why I have never played competitively since.
"Liverpool offered a contract too, but that was it for me as far as football was concerned, I was totally put off."
Morrison, who was brought up on the same Manchester council estate as former British world champion Ricky Hatton, had been training in the boxing gym three times a week since the age of seven.
And now was the chance to put everything into his dream of being a sports superstar.
"I would have got to the point where I had to decide whether to pick boxing or football, just like Ricky Hatton, so this just made it easier," added Morrison.
"I know Ricky really well, we grew up on the same estate, and I have trained at his gym. I worked with the same trainer as him and went out to support him in Las Vegas when he fought Floyd Mayweather.
"My earliest memories of him was when he was winning fights, and winning titles, I know him really well and have chatted a lot with him about boxing."
Morrison, who grew up watching endless videos of his hero Sugar Ray Leonard, is immediately likeable and approachable, and open and honest about his career and upbringing.
But he is also confident, confident in his ability and that it can take him all the way to the top.
"If I thought I would only be domestic or British champion, then I wouldn't be involved in the sport," said Morrison.
"I've got plenty of learning to do, but I believe I can one day win a world title, I wouldn't be in this if I didn't think that was possible."
The Manchester boxer will next be in action on the undercard of Anthony Joshua's first IBF world tite defence at the Manchester Arena on November 26, with an opponent still to be named.