James Cook: How the former European champion changed lives

Cook’s understanding of people began long before boxing.

He was raised by his grandparents in Jamaica until he joined his parents in London at the age of nine, his grandmother running 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 that money meant little compared to the way you treated others.

It was this spirit that permeated his approach to working with young people, most notably at Pedro’s – a youth club in Hackney which he saved from closure in 2003.

The club has been part of Hackney since 1929, and is located between three main residential areas on what became known as the ‘Murder Mile’.

For Cook, who grew up in a tough housing estate in London when he moved from Jamaica, its closure “didn’t make sense” because “there wasn’t anything else for the kids to do”.

He understood the pressures young people face – the lack of role models, distorted ideas of success, and the allure of life on the streets.

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

He insisted on good manners – and appropriate language, and once revealed he told anyone who used bad language that they would have to get in the ring with him.

The police praised his work in an article in The Independent, external in 2007 “to help us reduce crime and make our streets safer” and that Cook was “doing great work with hard-to-reach young people”.

Cook would often stand at the top of the youth club’s stairs — a towering presence at 6 feet 2 inches — watching the street, greeting people and calling out anyone who had stayed outside too long.

“He was like a king on his throne,” Natasha Patterson recalls. “Always there. Always keeping an eye on things.”

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

She started small — helping in the kitchen, supporting youth activities — before Cook nudged her toward boxing training, even when she was doubting herself.

Over time, she earned her badges, traveled the country with him giving 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 invest his own money in the club or fundraise and faced regular battles to save the club from closing to maintain its mission of keeping children off the street.

“That saying it takes a village to raise a child – well, that’s what Pedro’s Club is – a beacon and a village,” Derek Williams, club president and former British and European heavyweight champion, told BBC Sport.