Beattie – who is originally from Belfast and now trains at the same Salford gym as one of Prince Naseem’s sons – said he became “fascinated” by Ingle, an ex-steelworker-turned-trainer, “because he was this charismatic Irishman from Dublin”.
“He had this way of training boxers, which was completely different to anything that I’d ever heard about before,” he said.
“So they turned up wanting to box and he’d get them reciting nursery rhymes to build their confidence.
“He always said to me, ‘If they can’t cope with the embarrassment of singing a song or reciting a nursery rhyme in front of their friends, how they’re going to feel when they step in the ring?’.”
As a psychologist, Beattie wanted to know more about “how you make people get rid of the doubts in their mind, how you make them feel more secure – and this was a guy who was doing it for real in a gym”.