- Boxing has more than its share of tragedy and this is yet further heartbreak
- The fight game is responding to the plight of the once-dazzling Herol Graham
- The story is made even more tragic as his partner Karen Neville is also ill
- They are separated by Graham's confinement to St Ann's mental health hospital
Boxing has more than its share of tragedies and the hardest game of all is responding to another heartbreak, this one made doubly rending by the plight afflicting both the fighter and his partner.
Herol Graham, the once-dazzling talent affectionately known as Bomber, is now in a psychiatric ward. Karen Neville, the lady who had helped him fight back from depression and three attempts at suicide, is grievously ill with stage three cancer. Together, they had barely been eking out a living and she has become too ill to work.
Now they are separated by Graham’s confinement to St Ann’s mental health hospital in Haringey, against his will but for his own good. Boxing News found Graham there after he went missing in north London. What they discovered is a noble and much-loved warrior reduced to incomprehension and despair by the ravages of chronic depression.
Boxing is rallying to the aid of Herol Graham, the once-dazzling talent known as Bomber
Graham had not given his assent to being sectioned a second time but his meanderings between brief spells of lucidity and forlorn bewilderment made it clear how urgently he is in need of treatment.
To this, arguably the most gifted British boxer never to win a world title has been reduced by the familiar failure of a fighting man to cope with life after hanging up his gloves.
Karen’s condition, meanwhile, has been worsening through a lack of funds for cancer treatment not available to her on the NHS.
Graham has suffered with depression and has attempted to take his own life three times
The boxing community, as ever, is rallying to the support of one of its fallen. Within three days of being set up, a Just Giving site has brought in an initial £10,000 towards treatment for Karen.
In both Nottingham, where Graham was born 58 years ago, and Sheffield, where he was schooled at Brendan Ingle’s fabled gym, a variety of appeals will be raising funds in his name.
Neither city has forgotten that despite all his difficulties, Graham has continued working selflessly to help youngsters find a way out of hardship through boxing. The sport itself cherishes memories of Bomber at his most magical, of the nights when his talent lit up halls between 1978 and 1998.
Across those 20 years he won 48 of his 54 professional fights but he was campaigning through an era when world middleweight and super-middleweight championships were difficult to come by.
Across those 20 years, Graham would go on to win 48 of his 54 professional fights
Thus, of his six defeats, those that hurt the most came in his three world title fights, at the hands of exceptional operators Mike McCallum, Julian Jackson and Charles Brewer. After the last of those he retired, sadly unprepared for life after boxing.
Financial pressures closed in. The struggle to survive has brought him to a mental breakdown from which he will need all help possible to recover. News of such initiatives as a skipathon in Nottingham will be forthcoming on social media.
Meanwhile, donations towards Karen’s cancer treatment can be made at www.justgiving.com/ crowdfunding/karens-fight
l Amir Khan will take on Phil Lo Greco when he returns after almost two years out on April 21 at the Echo Arena in Liverpool. The 31-year-old will step down in weight for a bout that has been made just above the welterweight threshold at 149lb.
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