Next year marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Manchester's legendary boxing coach Phil Martin.
Phil's one-time protégé Joe Gallagher - a coach with an impeccable reputation in the sport of boxing - now hopes to have a statue commemorating his late mentor erected in time for the milestone, in Moss Side's Alexandra Park.
Decades after his death, Phil's legacy remains great. He founded Champs Camp Amateur Boxing Club on Princess Road in Moss Side, in the early 80s, at a time when the inner south Manchester neighbourhood was scarred by battles of the 1980s - against poverty, institutional racism, inner city frustration, and crime.
With the help of friends and fighters, Phil built the gym into a place where the troubles of the outside world could be left behind, where the frustrations of the streets could be channelled into honest competition and physical discipline.
Joe Gallagher remembers being a 16-year-old taking a bus to Phil Martin's gym every day at the start of his own career in the sport.
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"Moss Side ABC at night time, it was above the Co op then," he said. "It was like a lighthouse, that building was always lit up.
"There was sweat and perspiration dripping off the windows. You'd be on the top seat of the bus looking in to see what was going on. And what was going on was great for the area and for the city of Manchester.
"All the kids from the area and the community were in there, in the gymnasium, because that was the only thing that was going on."
Despite the gym giving so many young people a purpose and a place to go, as well as producing some exceptional fighters, the saviour tag wasn't one Phil ever accepted.
It's reported that whenever a politician entered the gym in search of a photo opportunity, he would laugh and head for his office.
"Everybody respected the gym," Gallagher says. "No matter what trouble was going on outside, when they walked in they left everything outside and it was forgotten about.
"It didn't matter where you came from; people travelled in from Ardwick, Wythenshawe, Moss Side, everyone just come together. They had a team and a sense of belonging to something and that's what it still is."
Tragically, Phil Martin was just 44 when he died in 1994 after a battle with cancer. A few years earlier, he had asked Gallagher if he would take over training the amateur boxers at the Moss Side gym as the success of his professional fighters demanded more of his time.
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Champs Camp's success wasn't just from its fighters, it produced some of the sport's most respected coaches, including Gallagher.
"I tell you now, the coaches that came out of Champs Camp – Billy Graham, who then went to guide Ricky Hatton, Myself with the Smiths (boxing brothers Liam, Callum, Paul and Stephen), Oliver Harrison (Amir Khan's former trainer), they're all a product of what came out of Champs Camp Moss Side back then. We sort of continued the legacy of what Phil Martin started," Joe said.
Another notable name to come from Gallagher's stable of fighters is Liverpool fighter, Natasha Jonas. The British fighter has held the unified WBC, IBF, and WBO female light-middleweight titles since 2022.
"There's a lot more success stories that came through them doors in Champs Camp Moss Side that didn't box - that went on to become teachers, lawyers, plumbers, but used the work ethic and the discipline from the gymnasium to better themselves," says Gallagher.
For Gallagher, it's the belief that boxing is about more than just about creating great fighters - but about creating better people - that makes it so important.
The trainer left Champs Camp in the mid-'90s to build his own hugely successful stable of fighters, went on to coach multiple world champions and was the first ever British-born trainer to win the prestigious Ring Magazine Trainer of the Year Award.
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Now – nearly 30-years later – things have come full-circle and Joe's back at the legendary Moss Side gym training his professional fighters.
"The community still uses the gym in the afternoon," he says. "It's absolutely packed at night time for the amateurs, it's really busy.
"But there was a time slot for a professional gym and for me to go back there as one of Phil's protégés, (to) where I started coaching in '91 with all my professional fighters, I'm sure Phil would be very proud."
A self-confessed fan of the man management skills of Manchester United's legendary manager, Alex Ferguson, Gallagher understands that to be a great coach you have to do more than just teach the sweet science.
"You can be a marriage counsellor and the Samaritans," he says.
"You've got to be the fighter's best friend, you've got to be their motivator and disciplinarian, you've got to be there when they want to talk, or be a shoulder to come and cry on. You've got to be understanding and know each individual, you can't treat everybody the same."
So what does Gallagher think about his own legacy? "I feel like I've got a good crop of kids at the moment that are coming through," he says.
"And while I've got the energy and the desire, I want them to achieve their goals and push them to get that. As far as my legacy, that's not for me to tell. That's for somebody else to talk about.
"But I want to put Champs Camp and Phil Martin's name back on the map again. When people go to America they want to go the Wild Card, Freddie Roach's gym, when people go to Philadelphia they go to Rocky Steps, when people go to Detroit they want to go to the famous Kronk gym, when people go to Manchester they want to go to Champs Camp and that's my goal now for the next six or seven years."
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