It felt like pathetic fallacy: as the morning of Ricky Hatton’s funeral dawned, droplets of rain landed on the pavements and parks in and around Manchester like ceaseless jabs. It was an incrementally overwhelming bombardment that Hatton himself would have been proud of. Less than a month after one of Britain’s finest boxers suddenly passed away, at the age of just 46, it was time to pay a collective tribute.
The tributes began in Hyde, Greater Manchester, where Hatton resided; they ended – although, really, they may never truly end – at Manchester Cathedral. It felt as though a staggering percentage of the city’s population, and those of its suburbs, had turned out to mourn Hatton’s death and celebrate his life.
