WHEN Ryan Martin steps through the doors of Team GB’s high performance gym in Sheffield this morning, there will be a tinge of what might have been.

The former Walcot and England amateur is heading north with trainer Richard Farnan and stable-mates Kelly Morgan and Danny Bharj to spar with the GB podium performance boxers in the final preparation his seventh professional bout on Sunday night at the Grange Drive Leisure Centre.

The unbeaten welterweight is no stranger to the making the journey up the M1 having got close to being selected for that squad in 2011.

Although he was ultimately unsuccessful in his bid for a training spot with the country’s elite amateurs and has since turned pro, Martin still holds his time at that level in high regard.

“The experience, in boxing terms, was the best that I could have had,” Martin told the Advertiser.

“The training they do, the regimes, the discipline the boys have got up there is unreal.

“You see the professionals (train), but they are on another level, they take immensely seriously throughout the amateurs.

“I always said that if I had got selected for the squad there was no guarantee I was going to get selected for the Olympics.

“There are no regrets, but the Olympics are the pinnacle and I had a pretty good amateur career as a junior, I would have been nice to take it on as a senior and do big things like that.”

Martin, who as a junior represented England on a number of occasions as well as winning the junior ABA title in 2010 and the National Amateur Children and Young Person crown 12 months later, reached the last four of selection for the GB squad.

However, the 21-year-old says he has no ill-feelings about his GB snub.

“I had a bad week the weekend I went up there,” he said. “Sparring hadn’t been great.

“Up to that point I had been feeling brilliant, but I guess that I was on a little bit on a downer when I got there with all the training that I was doing trying to get in.

“I was gutted not to get in, but I am here now and I don’t look back.”

Martin, who won his first professional title in his last outing when he defeated Faheem Khan over eight to claim the welterweight Challenge belt, is expecting it to be tough day when they walk through the gym door.

“It is a nice friendly place, but it is intimidating, when you step into the sparring there is no holding back,” said Martin, who faces Rob Brown on Sunday.

“There is no friendly sparring, it is like a fight, you either do well and hold your own or you will get hurt.”