For some, the answer is a bricks-and-mortar solution.<\/p>\n
Jimmy Revie, a former British champion, now lives with dementia. The 78-year-old from London is cared for by his wife, Louisa, who takes him to meetings of ex-boxers to keep the fading flame flickering.<\/p>\n
“When he goes to the meetings he comes alive because he sees all the old fighters, and they all say ‘hello Jim’ and they’re all friendly,” she says.<\/p>\n
Louisa is a vocal supporter of the Ringside Charity Trust, which is campaigning to open a 36-bed specialist care home for retired boxers – a facility similar to those provided by the Jockey Club for former riders. <\/p>\n
Currently, the charity runs a helpline that helps fighters in severe distress.<\/p>\n
“They’d have their own nursing staff that know about boxing,” Louisa explains. “They would know everybody. They want to do a cinema in there so they could watch their old fights.<\/p>\n
“So it would be a better atmosphere for them. And I think they would flourish in there.” <\/p>\n
Stephen Smith, a boxer turned coach from a family of boxers – including former world champions Callum Smith and Liam Smith – says retired fighters become “vulnerable” and can feel “forgotten”.<\/p>\n
“Your phone doesn’t go again once you retire,” he says.<\/p>\n
“It’s sad but if there can be something in place to help look after fighters after the sport it’s a massive, massive thing.”<\/p>\n
The trust has high-profile backing; former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua wore their logo on his attire for his recent fight with Jake Paul. <\/p>\n
But, while the will is there, the way to fund it has proven difficult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For some, the answer is a bricks-and-mortar solution. Jimmy Revie, a former British champion, now lives with dementia.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-495764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}