Tyson Fury has dreamt about winning the world heavyweight title so many times during his 27 years that in the early hours of yesterday morning, he began to wonder whether his mind was tricking him. "I thought this better not be a dream and I have to fight tomorrow," he said. "Then I realised it was real. I was the new heavyweight champion of the world!"

Fury celebrated taking Wladimir Klitschko's WBA, IBF and WBO titles, by serenading the 50,000 crowd at Dusseldorf's Esprit Arena with Aerosmith's I Don't Want To Miss A Thing and he was no less unorthodox on his first day as champion, as he said goodbye to his camp shortly after midday to catch the overnight ferry to Hull with his pregnant wife, Paris. There was no sore head, from bottle or fist. Fury, who has long given up booze, celebrated with the soft stuff and while he agreed that Klitschko had caught him flush a few times, the Ukrainian's punches had not shaken him and had left only minor bruises over his eyes.

“I’m feeling good, apart from my feet,” he said. “They’re absolutely killing me. For some reason they were more affected than any other part of my body. My toes are all blistered from where I was moving so much. I need to invest in a better pair of socks. Even though we had a lot of foam taken out, it was still quite a spongy canvas.

“And as far as I’m concerned right now, if I never win another fight I don’t care because I’ve achieved what I set out to achieve. I’m a winner and I had a lot of bumps in the road and could have said: ‘I’m done, no more, I’m packing it in.’ I stuck with it and it shows determination and dedication pays off.”

When Fury was born, in 1988, nearly three months premature, he weighed less than a pound and doctors did not believe that he would survive. His father, John, named him Tyson, after the then-heavyweight champion of the world, and promised hospital staff his son would not only recover but emulate the famous namesake. How happy he is to have been proven correct.

John was a former professional fighter who also dabbled in unlicensed and bare-knuckle boxing, and as soon as Tyson was old enough to stand he would practise punching his father’s hands. Jab, left hook, one-two-three. At the age of 11, when he first put on a pair of boxing gloves, Fury became convinced – along with everyone else in his family – he was going to be the heavyweight champion of the world.

Sparring

His younger brother Shane was his first sparring partner and they used to “play” box all the time. “There was only one pair of gloves in the house. They were my dad’s old gloves – and they were all stinky and sweaty. So we used to put one glove on each and have tea towels wrapped around our other hand. We used to spar in the kitchen, plates going everywhere.

“We used to have this rug in the kitchen – it wasn’t very big and whoever went off the mat first was out,” he continued. “We’d trade punches. Even before I had an amateur fight me and my dad would spar in the garden.”

John takes up the story. “I was on the grass one Sunday, it was a lovely sunny afternoon, and him and Shane asked me to spar with them,” he said. “Tyson hit me with a left hook and I felt a searing pain in my side. I thought ‘What, from a 14-year-old lad?’ and I had fought some tough cookies in my time. I thought to myself ‘I’ll have a sit-down’. But when I went to get up off the wall, I couldn’t move. I had three broken ribs.

“He was a big 14, around 6ft 5in, 16 stone. He was a fat kid. He was not tall and lean. He loved McDonald’s and burgers. A friend of mine said that although he had layers of fat on him, he had never seen anyone move like him and that he could be a champion. He started with amateur boxing and they couldn’t get him a fight because he was so big.”

Fury has talked about the crushing depression he feels after each fight and he expects it to emerge again, even though he has now achieved his childhood dream. “I’ve not crashed quite yet,” he admitted. “It won’t start until I get home, by myself and all the people have gone and I’m home alone.”

Fury’s controversial views, particularly on homosexuality and abortion – which he compared to paedophilia – brought widespread condemnation this month but yesterday he urged people to separate his ability from his beliefs. “My personal life has nothing to do with my professional life,” he said. “Whatever people want to criticise and say about me, they can knock me as a person but they can’t knock my achievements.”

Fury’s promoter, Mick Hennessy, insisted his man was only “quoting scripture”. He also stressed his fighter is far more intelligent and nuanced than he is often perceived. “He is a smart kid,” said Hennessy. “He can talk on any subject you want, even though he is someone who didn’t have a formal education. He has old-fashioned values. He’s got morals. He’s generous with his time. He’s generous with his money. He also needs to be respected and appreciated. Because he is such fun. He’s larger than life.”

Hennessy also pointed out how Fury had been incredibly loyal after other fighters had deserted him when he lost major TV deals. “When the cracks went sour he put his arm around me and said: ‘You believed in me when I needed it, so whatever it takes I am going to be with you, if it means fighting for nothing I will be with you.’

“That’s incredibly rare in boxing. It’s unbelievable to come across a young man like that who is such a showman but also has that humanity.”

The morning after the night before Fury also paid generous tribute to Klitschko, hailing him as a great champion and thanking his camp for treating him fairly. On the morning of the fight Fury had complained about the layers of added foam in the ring and also raised concerns about ill-fitting gloves earlier in the week. He was in a more conciliatory mood after his victory.

“I can say one thing: they didn’t really do too much messing about,” he said. “They were honourable men.

“But they weren’t that fair were they when they put half a foot of memory foam under the canvas in the ring? I suppose if they can get away with it, they are going to try it, aren’t they? And I think this is why they have been so successful because they have every corner of every page covered. But we had too much brains. Not only did we fool the boxing fraternity, we fooled the Klitschkos and all these so-called experienced lawyers.”

Top dog

Fury is only the eighth Briton to hold a version of the heavyweight title. In beating Klitschko, the man who has dominated the division for the past decade, he has established himself as top dog. He knows his Irish heritage is likely to play well in the United States.

And if it doesn't work out, there's always a singing career to consider. "I've got to say so, after 12 hard rounds I didn't half hit the notes on Saturday night, didn't I?" he said, his smile again lighting up a grey Dusseldorf morning. Guardian Service