Bradford boxer Nadeem Siddique today revealed his fear after being knocked out by a potentially fatal bug.

Siddique spent a week in hospital after being struck down by viral meningitis.

And the unbeaten lightweight prospect admitted: "I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk. At one stage I thought I was a goner.

"It was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me, especially because they didn't know what was wrong. At first they thought I had popped a blood vessel in my brain but nobody realised exactly what the problem was.

"I didn't eat for two or three days and I just wanted to sleep all the time. It wasn't until about the fifth day that they diagnosed that I had this strain of viral meningitis."

The 23-year-old has become a major hit with the city's boxing public since turning pro. Siddique, who trains along with Junior Witter at the Sheffield-based Ingle gym, has won all four of his fights in front of sell-out crowds in Bradford.

Now manager John Ingle plans to rest him until September to allow Siddique to rebuild his fitness levels.