‘Out of the ring, he was fighting another fight’

“They say that you can tell a lot about the character of a person by how people show up for them when they’ve gone.”

The funeral British boxer Anthony Yarde is telling BBC Sport about drew hundreds of people on to the streets of Hackney, London, and more than 1,000 also reportedly attended his wake.

They were paying their respects to James Cook, a former British and European super-middleweight champion, who died in June at the age of 66.

But they were remembering him as much more than a boxer or a coach.

To many, his most memorable fights were against the knives, guns and drugs in a notoriously violent area of the capital and his greatest successes were steering youngsters away from that path, particularly though his work at the Pedro Youth Club that was recognised with an MBE.

“When he was in the ring, he was fighting for people’s entertainment. Afterwards, when he was out of the ring, he was fighting another fight, it was to help people,” light-heavyweight Yarde said.

Among the well known names to pay tribute to Cook when he died was boxing promoter Frank Warren, who posted on social media that he was a “true gentleman of our sport”.

After about 25 amateur fights, losing only six, Cook turned professional. In 1990 he won the British super-middleweight title, followed by the European crown a year later. His final fight came in 1994, when he lost the British title to Cornelius Carr.

Cook never won a world title, but he fought among Britain’s elite, including Michael Watson, Nigel Benn, Herol Graham.

Yarde added Cook to his coaching team in 2020, saying he brought “a lot of love and warmth to any room” and held him up as a positive role model beyond boxing.

“The way he spoke about his wife, that’s love,” Yarde said.

“After the age of 12 years old, my dad wasn’t really in my life so, to see someone of that age talk about their wife the way they did, it was incredible.”

Cook’s understanding of people began long before boxing.

Raised by his grandparents in Jamaica until he joined his parents in London at the age of nine, his grandmother ran the household with warmth and discipline, instilling responsibility and kindness.

“She taught us manners and respect,” he wrote in his autobiography Guardian of the Streets, often reminding him money meant little compared with how you treated others.

It was this ethos than ran through his approach to youth work, most notably at the Pedro Club – a youth club in Hackney that he saved from closure in 2003.

The club had been part of Hackney since 1929, sitting between three major housing estates on what became known as “Murder Mile”.

To Cook, who had grown up on a tough council estate in London when he moved from Jamaica, closing it “didn’t make sense” as “there was nothing else for kids to do”.

He understood the pressures facing young people — absent role models, distorted ideas of success, the pull of street life.

His response was not lectures, but structure, honesty and consistency – delivered through the opportunity to play sport, make music and learn life skills and underpinned by the discipline and respect learned in his boxing.

He insisted on good manners – and language to match, once revealing he told anyone using bad language they would have to get in the ring with him.

His work was praised by police in an article in the Independent in 2007 for “helping us to cut down crime and making our streets safer” and that Cook was “doing a fantastic job with youngsters who are hardest to reach”.

Cook would often stand at the top of the stairs of the youth club – a towering presence at 6ft 2ins – watching the street, greeting people and calling out to anyone who lingered too long outside.

“He was like a king on his throne,” recalled Natasha Patterson. “Always there. Always watching over things.”

Patterson used to walk past the Pedro and Cook would shout that the club needed volunteers. At first she didn’t go in but eventually she listened.

She started small — helping in the kitchen, supporting youth activities — before Cook nudged her towards boxing coaching, even when she doubted herself.

Over time, she earned her badges, travelled the country alongside him delivering talks about the club, and became Pedro’s head boxing coach.

“He was the first man I ever met who truly believed in me,” she said. “He made me feel like I could do anything.”

Cook often had to put his own money into the club or fundraise and faced regular battles to save the club from closing down to keep alive his mission to keep kids off the street.

What set Cook apart was his authority without intimidation. Former cruiserweight world champion Johnny Nelson described it as his “superpower”.

“People respected him out of love, not fear,” Nelson said. “The young listened to him. The old listened to him.”

Cook was awarded an MBE in 2007 for services to youth justice, but he wore honours lightly. Patterson never saw flash cars or designer clothes.

“Just James in an Adidas tracksuit,” she said. “That was him.”

His wife Carmen saw first hand the balance he struck between boxing, community work and family.