During the depression, people fought each other for boxes of groceries and if you were lucky you might get a few shillings for fighting six rounds. When Jack Johnson was World Heavyweight Champ, back in the early 1900s, Hartlepool had a brilliant boxer called Jasper Carter. People today will never have heard of him, but almost 100 years ago he put Hartlepool on the fistic map.

At first, we both miss a few sharp bursts of wild punches and then, BANG! I catch him with a full swing left hook and he goes down like a ferret down a hole after a rabbit. When that punch landed, I broke my hand, again, and simultaneously broke his jaw. I wonder if that is an entry into the Guinness Book of records?

When I got off him, I spat the blood that was swamping my mouth in to his face, I looked down at him and it really looked like he was dying… shit! The ambulance arrived in about a minute and they got an oxygen mask straight on him and I could see the life draining out of him. You see, this is the problem; we are only human and flesh and blood.