‘You need to ask yourself what are you are afraid of?’

The Empire Fighting Chance charity started out as a fluke really.

My partner and I saw two young men dealing drugs and we thought we’re sick of this happening in our area. We went over to them and said this has to stop. We offered them the gym where I coached. Within six weeks we had 50 young people coming in five days a week.

I would say definitely use your head, don’t just go all in.

This does lead to problems. Be analytical, be business-minded about the decisions you make and be brave because you can always get another job.

You need to ask yourself what am I afraid of?

Then tell yourself let’s give it a go anyway. Be resilient. Be prepared to fail and be brave because if you’re not then it’s almost like you are afraid to win the game. You’re afraid to win the boxing match.

The last thing we’re teaching is violence. This is all about resilience.

It’s about accepting who you are and accepting situations. We talk about not being able to control what happens around you but you can control your reaction. We have the conversation, this might feel rubbish, it might be hard and there are going to be times in your life when people make you really unhappy. But if you can control how you behave and respond, this builds, resilience, self-confidence and self-esteem.

You don’t have to be tough dealing with young people.

We’ve never had to restrain a young person in 16 years. They just want to find somewhere where they belong. They might test us but part of that test is because they’ve been rejected on multiple occasions. We teach them they belong here.