As Moss Side burned during the riots of 1981 Phil Martin was already thinking about how he could restore some pride in the shattered community.
Amid the broken glass and rubble he built a boxing gym - Champs Camp - above a burnt out Co-op, painted a 20ft mural of Mohammed Ali on the side and waited for the fighters to come.
And come they did.
Drawn by the retired fighter's charisma, presence and fearsome sense of discipline, young lads from the streets of Moss Side and South Manchester walked up the stairs in their droves.
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Success in the ring was in many ways secondary to shaping the lives of the fighters in his charge.
But after 10 years of hard work, Phil, a car mechanic by trade, had four professional British champions.
They included light-heavyweight title holder Maurice Core, who'd walked into the gym few years earlier as a cocky 16-year-old with a cig hanging out of his mouth.
"I was trying to be cool, but I was just pretending," said Maurice.
"Phil really was cool. He had this big menacing presence.
"He looked at me and was like 'Are you serious?' and threw me out."
Three months later, having quit smoking, Maurice returned determined to give it a shot.
And he immediately found himself at home.
"There was a sense of competition," he said.
"Everyone wanted to be the best, but everyone was looking out for each other.
"I wanted some of that. You've got to remember there wasn't much going on for young kids round here in those times.
"I walked in here and there was a sense of belonging. It felt like a family."
The 80s and 90s were dark times for Moss Side.
On the streets outside the gym turf wars between the infamous Doddington and Gooch gangs were raging.
But throughout it all Champs Camp remained a haven for the young men inside.
"Moss Side was hostile," said Maurice. "It got more hostile with the gang wars, but the gym remained a safe space.
"People respected Phil and what he was doing.
"He used to say 'Out there let them do what they want to do, we'll do what we do in here'.
"Phil was achieving for the area. People respected that.
"Everything that came out of Moss Side at the time was negative - nobody wanted to speak about the good work the gym was doing."
But with the gym flying high and with everyone's sights set on even greater glory, tragedy struck.
Having returned from holiday feeling ill, one Friday in the middle of 1993 Phil, who lost his own attempt to win the British title 17 years earlier, revealed he was dying of cancer.
"Phil always instilled in us that we could beat anything, so when he said he was going to beat cancer we believed him," said Maurice
"Then one day he came in and said he'd been given six weeks to live."
Phil died on May, 27, 1994. He was just 44-years-old.
His death shattered his close-knit stable of fighters and rocked the community.
Hundreds turned out at his funeral at a disused TV studio, where Maurice gave a reading.
"Phil's life got cut short - 44 years-old is no age for a man to die," said Maurice.
"He was just getting started. He started the gym from nothing and worked his way up to championship level fighters.
"Who knows what he might have gone on to do."
But the gym didn't die.
There's been some tough times, but it survived and is now thriving again.
Maurice is the man in charge now and the old Co-op has been renamed the Phil Martin Centre.
The club has more than 100 members, boys and girls from 12-years upwards, who train in the first floor gym surrounded by photographs and posters of the men in whose footsteps they're following.
Champions such as Carl Thompson, Frank Grant, Paul Burke and Tony Ekubia who came from the same streets they did.
Phil's legacy lives on in other ways too.
Former Champs Camp fighters such as Joe Gallagher and Billy Graham, have gone on to become world-beating trainers, coaching the likes of Ricky Hatton, Anthony Crolla and Scott Quigg.
And it lives on in Maurice, who during his time as an amateur was wrongly arrested on suspicion of nine attempted murders and held in Strangeways before being later cleared of all charges and awarded substantial damages.
He went on to become a governor at a primary school, worked as Naseem Hamed's conditioner and trained his old sparring partner Carl Thompson as he won a European title.
Plans are afoot to erect a statue of Phil in the park opposite the gym, a fitting tribute to everything he achieved..
The club, a registered charity, is currently raising the £20,000 it will require.
But Phil's real monument is the impact he had on the countless young men he took under his wing.
"How many lives did Phil change?" asks Maurice.
"It's been 27 years since he died and people are still talking about him like it was yesterday.
"People still come up to me and tell me stories about him.
"That's his legacy more than anything else."
