GALLUS, gemme as they come and blessed with the gift of the gab, Joe Ham has Glasgow written all over him.

However, he will not accept he has really made it until he has emulated one of Scotland's most iconic boxers and had his own name written over one particular corner of the city he lives and breathes.

Ham is a Gorbals boy and magnificently proud of it. He has grown up on tales of Benny Lynch's journey from a life of deprivation on the mean streets of that renowned neighbourhood on the south bank of the Clyde to the lofty position of flyweight champion of the world and back again.

He wants those who have compared him to the great man to be proven right. He wants what Lynch had in his golden days of the mid-1930s - a world title, universal acclaim and the ability to bring the Dear Green Place to a standstill - and maybe even one thing that was handed to him long after his tragic passing.

"In the Gorbals, there's a street called Benny Lynch Court," said Ham, going for Commonwealth gold in the bantamweight division. "It's a big tower with an arch in it with houses all around it. I want my own area. I want a close named after me.

"Benny Lynch was a local boy who did well. We are both from the lighter weight categories, so we aren't too far away from each other and I would love to follow in his footsteps.

"You know who he is as you grow up. You don't see videos, as such, but people still talk about him and you get compared to him.

"I'm making my own legacy, though. When I have won the Commonwealth Games, I want to have a big journey as a professional ahead of me. When I get my first pro fight at the Gorbals Leisure Centre, I want to be sure it's sold out. I want everyone to come and see this local boy doing good.

"Everybody goes on about the past and folk says the Gorbals is a rough place, but they've never been in it. I feel I am showing good things come out of it.

"I've got all the Glasgow 2014 signs outside my house, the pubs have posters of me, people are buzzing on Facebook and Twitter. It's been non-stop and I need to look after my side of it now. I have got the hardest weight category out there, but I am coming for it, man. I am ready for it."

Ham, it seems fair to say, did not always look destined for success in athletic pursuits, particularly not in boxing's 56kg category. He has used much of his time in the spotlight since the nation turned its focus towards these celebrations in his home city to detail how the discipline central to his sport turned him from a portly child teased by his contemporaries into the proud young man we see today.

The changes have not only been physical, though. He is unfailingly candid when detailing just how devoid he was of any sense of self-worth, any belief that he could amount to anything.

Bear in mind that this is a fellow who has been spotted in the Athletes' Village this week sporting a bright blue Mohican hairstyle, just as he did in Delhi four years ago. "I just had no confidence at all, whether it was talking to lassies or taking my top off on holiday," he said. "I was the boy who was in the pool with my T-shirt on.

"I was just Wee Fat Guy Joe, the last pick at everything. I was useless, so I turned my hand to boxing. I lost my first fight and thought: 'I'm useless at this as well.'

"I had such a bad temper back then. I hated it.

"I used to get annoyed and hold it in. I think that boxing has helped with that."

It has also taught him patience. He has had to wait four long years to make up for the desperate disappointment of losing in the last 16 of the 2010 Games to Sakaria Lukas of Namibia.

He gave up a winning position to be dragged into the mother of all slugfests and collapsed after leaving the ring, eventually being brought round when he was given oxygen.

Ham remembers little of the fight itself, but is clear when asked about the major lesson learned.

"Don't get hit, man," he replied. "I have never seen that fight back and I refuse to watch it.

"I built myself up so much and let myself down. I was five points up and I remember the coach telling me to stay out of it. I can't remember what happened next. It turns out that, as I came in, the guy had pushed his elbow down on the top my head.

"I went to say to the ref that he'd elbowed me. When I did that, he punched me, it started a riot and I lost 15-13. I was flinging punches, but I couldn't see.

"When I came out the ring, one of the BBC woman asked me about it and I said I didn't want to speak as I was a bit hingy. As I was walking, I just fell. The whole experience had been so draining.

"I can say now, though, that it was the best thing to happen to me because it gave me a kick up the arse."

Ham's dad, Joe Sr, who doubles as his coach, and mum, Nicola, have rallied round with financial support since he gave up an apprenticeship in joinery to concentrate on his boxing.

His sponsors at Forge MOT, Rock n Rolls and Simpson Builders have also weighed in with some significant financial contributions to aid the fighter's progress. "If it wasn't for all of them, I wouldn't be able to do this," he said. "As much as the medal is for me, it's to repay them too."

That gold, Ham believes, is his destiny. The professional career of the young boxer is being mapped out as we speak, but what of a new, snappy nickname for this irrepressible little fellow when he eventually comes to enter the paid ranks?

"I went to Australia recently and destroyed their fighter with bodyshots," he said with a smile. "That's why they call me The Bodysnatcher."

Yes, if there is one thing in this entire sporting spectacular that embodies everything so gloriously Glasgow, Joe Ham is it.