FROM giggling Indian schoolgirls to elderly English matrons, it was a Herculean challenge yesterday to find anyone in Amir Khan’s home town not planning to watch the local hero in last night’s Olympic boxing semi-final.
None doubted that he would win, none doubted that on Sunday he would be fighting for an Olympic gold medal that, at 17, would be one of the most remarkable of the Games in Athens. He did not let them down, of course, his thrilling 40 points to 26 defeat of Serik Yeleuov, of Kazakhstan, earning him at least Olympic silver.
The flags of Britain and Pakistan may have vied for attention among his ringside fan club in Greece, but for the people of Bolton there was no identity crisis: they have long since claimed him as their own.
A stroll among the pedestrians in Victoria Square would have been a disturbing experience for anyone who would seek to preach a gospel of racial discord. Although it has a significant ethnic minority population, Bolton has largely escaped the escalating tensions between young whites and Asians that exploded into violence in the nearby Lancashire towns of Oldham and Burnley three years ago.
For the past fortnight, since Khan’s lightning fists have burnt their way into the national consciousness, the teenager has become a potent force for inter-racial unity.
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The buzz of excitement was tangible. “Town Cheers On Our Amir!”, shouted the billboards for the Bolton Evening News, and at the Noorul Islam Mosque, where the young Khan received three years of religious instruction, they were taking their sporting duty very seriously.
Moulana Hafeez Ibrahim, one of the imams, explained that students learning the Koran had interrupted their studies for a series of special prayers to support the lad in his Olympic adventure.
His confidence, “Inshallah”, that Khan was going to win gold for Britain was shared by Frances Barton, 67, and Brenda Chappell, 68, members of a local amateur art group whose paintings were on display as part of the Bolton Festival. Their faces lit up at the very mention of Khan’s name and they immediately launched into a detailed explanation of why he would prove far too good for “that Kazakhstani fellow” in the semi-final. Ms Barton said she had no doubts that Khan and his family were “firmly rooted in northwest England”.
“When you look at him on the television, you see Pakistan, but when he opens his mouth you hear Bolton and that’s good enough for us. We have claimed him. He’s definitely ours,” she said.
Nineteen Union Jacks were proudly flying yesterday from the Khan family home, in the Bolton suburb of Heaton. At the nearby Smithhills School his former headmaster, John Lawson, hailed the boxer as a hugely positive role model for his pupils.
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“Amir was very popular and he always had the ability to mix easily with pupils of all age-groups and all backgrounds,” Mr Lawson said. “The whole school is incredibly proud of him. He is rightly proud to be Asian, but he’s also so clearly British in his sense of identity and that can do nothing but good. His success is fabulous for Bolton, but it’s also great news for multicultural relationships across Britain because everyone seems to be taking him to their heart.”
In the town centre, Shabir Tal, 23, a business student, was delighted that Khan was finally “putting Bolton on the map”.“Amir Khan is brilliant for all the people of Bolton, not just for Muslims, because he’s a bridging factor.
“It makes me really happy to see white people supporting him because it’s a beautiful thing when people from the different communities can unite together behind one champion. At the end of the day, it shows us that we’re all British.”