IPSWICH, England — A decade ago, a kid called Lewis Richardson would occasionally spend his Saturdays at Portman Road selling pies and hot tea to hungry punters who had turned up to watch Ipswich Town play.

From just down the road in Colchester, it was a solid way to earn money alongside his burgeoning career as an amateur boxer, which was starting to develop into something well beyond a hobby.

Fitting, then, that on Saturday evening he will make his debut punching for play in the stadium from which he once earned his crust.

Richardson was famously the only Team GB boxer to return from Paris 2024 with an Olympic medal. It remains the pinnacle of achievement for any amateur boxer, but for Richardson it was the extra-special culmination of a whirlwind nine months.

He looked certain to be one of the boxers who would fall through the cracks created when the 75kg and 69kg weight classes were merged for a new 71kg division at the Paris Games. Now seemingly too big for 71kg welterweight and too small for 80kg middleweight, it looked as though the dream was over.

In fact, he had even started to think about turning professional and headed to Spain in the November 2023 ready to say goodbye to amateur boxing.

“I remember that was the ‘farewell’ tournament for me,” Richardson tells The Ring. “I had been meeting with promoters and stuff, but the deals just didn’t feel right. I valued myself more than that.

“So I headed out to Alicante for that tournament just to box. I hadn’t boxed for a year because I didn’t know what I was doing. GB said they had a tournament coming up and I thought [expletive] it, I’ll have a week away in Spain’.

“I boxed at 75kg there, won three times, got gold and won Boxer of the Tournament. On that last night I remember thinking to myself ‘I’ve got seven months, I’m going to make 71kg and go to the Olympics.'"

Although there were some voices in the GB set-up unsure whether he could still perform at his new weight, Richardson got his head down and got the weight off. He even paid for himself to box at a tournament in the Algarve, Portugal, in a bid to show that he was capable at 71kg. He won gold.

Then, having qualified for the Olympics at an event in Thailand in May 2024, he headed to Paris last summer and went further than any other British boxer, eventually claiming bronze at 71kg following a defeat to Mexico’s Marco Verde, who has also since turned pro, in the semifinal.

Richardson has not boxed since that night at Roland Garros in August last year and his professional debut has been so long in the making that one of his Paris teammates, Delicious Orie, has since turned over, made his debut and retired already.

But on Saturday night it will be Richardson’s chance to take centre stage at Portman Road instead of flogging refreshments in the concourse. He turned 28 on Wednesday and, although he has had to swerve birthday cake until Sunday, his decision to campaign at the 160lb middleweight limit, which is 72.5kg, has meant a few more pounds to play with.

“We ummed and ahhed about doing middleweight or junior middleweight as a professional but we just felt like there’s probably better opposition in the UK at middleweight,” Richardson adds.

“I also want to feel healthy and junior middleweight, which is just under 70kg, wasn’t sustainable for me. It would have been a short-term fix. Now I feel a lot healthier and I’m fuelling a lot more. I feel I’m able to properly fuel sessions rather than thinking about what I’m going to weigh the next morning.”

Given his long and successful amateur career, Richardson will jump straight into a six-rounder for his debut, which makes up part of the undercard for Fabio Wardley’s homecoming fight with Justis Huni. And while he has experience of Portman Road, it is the stadium 16 miles down the A12 where he has ambitions of headlining.

“So I used to work at the Colchester United ground selling pies and that,” he explains. “And that is how I ended up doing those shifts at Portman Road, too.

“So to box here now is quite strange. If you’d have told that kid serving that day that he would box in the middle of it as a professional I don’t think he would have believed you. I was around 18 at the time and wasn’t on GB. I was a good youth but not a standout youth.

“So Portman Road is fantastic for my debut but obviously the plan is in a few years to box for a British, a Commonwealth, a European or even a world title and bring it back to Colchester.”

And what of Verde? The last man to beat him and the one to end his hopes of returning from Paris as Olympic champion. Could he do it on a wet Saturday night in Colchester?

“We had a fantastic bout in that semifinal,” Richardson says. “I’d love to do it over a longer duration. He is someone I definitely feel like I can beat.

“I’m not really one to call people out, I don’t like mentioning names but it should be an easy one to make in the future. He has a great following from Mexico and I have a good profile here off the back of the Olympics. I think it would be a wonderful spectacle in a few years’ time.”

He will take the first step on that road this Saturday when, thankfully, someone else will be selling the pies.