I’ve spent most of my life in boxing first in the ring, now in the corner. Hearing about the tragic death of Ricky Hatton today brought a truth I’ve been circling for years into sharp focus: boxing saves lives, but it can also break them.

When someone walks into a gym, one of three things happens. Boxing can save them and give them a future, it can hold their demons at bay for a while, or it can make everything worse. That’s true for boxers, coaches, and volunteers alike.

I know because I’ve been there. Previously I have experienced both depression and drug addiction in my life, which at one stage led to a short stay in a rehab. Boxing helped me survive, but I was lucky I had the right coaches, the right club. It shouldn’t come down to luck.

Mental health is a buzzword these days, but in boxing it needs to be practical. This is a sport that attracts people who are neurodiverse — ADHD, autism, OCD — and whose lives are often chaotic. If we don’t help them build lives outside boxing, we risk leaving them with nothing when they hang up the gloves. I encourage every boxer I coach to find other passions, so their identity isn’t entirely tied to their next fight.

I also refuse to normalise drinking and drugs. Boxing draws obsessive personalities people with demons to work through. Alcohol and drugs won’t fix those demons; they just give them sharper teeth.

England Boxing gets a lot right, but we need better support for coaches. Too many quit, break down, or turn to drink under the weight of admin and stress. Safeguarding must include safeguarding coaches from burnout.

And we need to look harder at how we treat boxers’ bodies. Knockouts are obvious, but the quiet damage comes from years of sparring, crash-dieting, and dehydration. In our gym, hard sparring is rare and never for kids. Fighters stay within a healthy weight range or they don’t compete. Some leave because of that, and I let them. I’d rather they leave healthy than stay and get hurt.

Ricky Hatton was one of the greats. And a personal hero of mine, If steps like above mentioned had been taken more seriously during his career, maybe he and countless others would have suffered less.

When someone walks into a boxing gym, they should be walking into a safer place — physically and mentally. That is our responsibility, even when it makes us unpopular. If we get that right, boxing doesn’t just make better boxers. It makes better lives.