“I am a little scared,” Joe Gallagher says quietly as, in a deserted room upstairs at his famous old gym in Moss Side, Manchester, he addresses the stage four bowel and liver cancer that has taken hold of him. Two hours earlier, while giving me a guided tour of the Champs Camp gym where history and sweat seep from the peeling walls, Gallagher had been in roaring flow.
As six of his fighters shadowboxed each other, feinting and weaving in the crowded ring, the 56-year-old had yelled out instructions. Gallagher looked every inch the proud winner of the Trainer of the Year award – which he received last month at the British Boxing awards. But no matter how hard he works, or how cleverly he tries to find a strategy to overcome the odds, he has entered dark terrain. He loves the company of his fighters and his family, and appreciates the medical experts who urge him to pay more attention to cancer than boxing, but there are moments when he is alone with the disease.
