Aeron ‘the Viking’ Maddocks

Aeron was winning North West titles as an amateur while he was still at school — before most people his age had decided anything. He turned professional and is 5–0.

What boxing gave him

Purpose and discipline, in that order. Not the medals — the fact that there was somewhere to be, something to train for, and a reason to not be doing something else. A teenager with a fight coming up has his week decided for him, and that turns out to matter more than almost anything else on offer.

That is the thing worth hearing if you are a parent watching your own kid drift. It was not a talk that straightened him out. It was having somewhere to put the energy.

Giving one up for the other

He was training mornings and nights at Joe Gallagher’s boxing academy while still playing football for his dad’s team. At sixteen something had to go. He told his dad he was going to have to pack the football in because it was just too tiring.

“No regrets,” he says. Twice.

On being frightened

Steve asks him straight out what the fear is like, walking towards another man in the opposite corner. The answer is the most useful thing in the episode, and it is not really about boxing at all.

Chaddy Park

He and Donny grew up on the same team — Chadderton Park, where his dad Frank coached and Steve was one of the dads on the touchline. As Steve puts it, it wasn’t just a football team, it was a community.

“Every single one of them lads were cracking lads,” Aeron says. “Win or lose, the coaches were the same.”

“There’s always going to be nerves. But in your head you’ve just got to think: this is what I’m doing, this is what I do. Be confident in your ability — not in an arrogant way. And go and do what you do.”Aeron Maddocks