IT takes only a few hours to travel from Morocco to Glasgow if you go by the most direct route. It took Anas Nfaou a little longer - but then he did go via Lithuania and Shetland.

At 16, Nfaou decided to leave his native Casablanca behind and stow away on a boat that he thought was bound for Spain. It was the start of an adventure that has ended up, five years later, with him studying to become a personal trainer at Glasgow Clyde College, and trying to win a place on the British boxing team at next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The 21-year-old knows that breaking into Team GB is a long shot: he has only been boxing properly for a year and a bit, and is inevitably less experienced than many of his middleweight rivals. But early results have been promising. He has won a Scottish Universities title, and, having fended for himself on the streets of his home city since he was nine, he is used to fighting bigger, stronger opponents - and prevailing.

If Nfaou does end up representing Great Britain at the Olympics or Scotland at the next Commonwealth Games - something he accepts is a more realistic goal - it will all be down to that one chance decision to jump on board a boat that took him way beyond his intended destination. “I was 16, and I had had enough of life in Casablanca,” he recalls. “I wanted to go to Spain, so me and a friend just jumped in a boat.

“The man in charge of the boat never seen us. I was hiding in a lifeboat at first, but after a while I came out.

“After we had been at sea for more than three days, I knew we weren’t just going to Spain. I don’t know where I thought we were going - China or somewhere like that. But we landed in Lithuania.

“Police from Lithuania said they can’t take us because we have no passports, then I think it was two British and two Italian police who came and spoke to us about what’s going to happen. They said we were going to Shetland Islands in Scotland, because that was where the boat was going next.

“In Shetland a woman from the Home Office interviewed me. At the time I was a minor so they got me social care. My friend was 21 and they sent him to Glasgow. Now he’s somewhere in England.”

Nfaou came close to being deported a couple of years ago after getting into trouble with the authorities, but without a passport or family in Morocco, he had become stateless. Now he has settled down, and is married with a wife, Christie, and daughter Sienna. The couple met in Shetland, and last year moved to Clackmannan,to be with Christie’s family. Nfaou commutes from there to college five days a week, and trains at Alloa Amateur Boxing Club.

“I have no-one in Morocco and lots of friends here,” he says. “My dad died and my mum died. I have a brother and a stepmother there. But I have a new family here.

“Every day I think about how all this has happened to me. I say ‘Look where I used to sleep, and look where I’m sleeping now’. I don’t know how to explain it.

“I used to fight a lot. I lived on the streets since I was nine, so I had to fight for my life, specially against bigger people than me. When I got here I had some fights and they said ‘Try it in the ring. Don’t get done for it’.

“I think after I was back in Alloa for a month and a half I had my first fight. And I won. And that was it.

“I’ve had 15 fights in one year and won 11. Four with a knockout.

“My coaches are happy with the way I am. They can’t wait to see me fighting next season, because the new season is going to start in two weeks.”

Even if he keeps up his speedy progress, Nfaou knows it will be an uphill battle to be selected for the Olympics. But he is far from daunted by the challenge.

“It will be very hard - but not impossible. In boxing I wouldn’t say that word. You never know. If I train hard and learn more and more, I have a chance.”

And if he is offered the chance to go to Rio as part of Team GB, you can be sure he will seize it with both hands. Just don’t ask him to go by boat.