Ricky Hatton escaped to Marbella for a drinking holiday with his mates

16:45 El NACHO 0 Comments

Ricky Hatton escaped to Marbella for a drinking holiday with his mates, letting slip he had had enough with boxing -- only to recant later. Some close friends thought he was milking it, keeping his name in the papers to help his new business as a promoter. His weight ballooned to 14 stone. He rowed with Jennifer at their home in Hyde, the police calling one night to still the shouting match in the street. Too many times to remember, she had found him passed out, drunk, on their driveway, left there by his pals after another bender.

Someone who had witnessed Hatton at full tilt on the booze recounts the experience: "I've seen him drink 20 pints, at least, usually Guinness, then wash it down with Bailey's Irish Cream or any other short that was handy, pass out, wake up, and do it all again, day after day."

Ricky and Jennifer went on holiday to Australia to patch things up and Ricky turned up at the tennis in Melbourne to cheer on Andy Murray. All seemed well. Murray, whose favourite sport is boxing, was clearly thrilled to see Hatton. It was mid-morning but Ricky had obviously been sampling the local beer. He told Murray he would be back for the final. He did not show, putting it out that Jennifer was ill and they had to return to Sydney.

When he came home, he went back to the gym briefly, even if it was mainly to get into shape for a charity football match. But the fire had gone, and Hatton knew it would never glow again. As one party drew to a close, another uglier one started, in hotel rooms and on the road, with rolled up £20 notes and little hills of white powder.

From Manchester to the bright lights, for 13 years of unbelievable thrills, Hatton had served his calling with an energy that left opponents and friends breathless, in the ring or in the bar. Yet, long before the applause began to fade, he refused to acknowledge what those around him could see and were reluctant to say: his unwillingness to curb his unhealthy eating between fights, his thirst for the drink and, latterly, his temptation into another phase of addiction were tearing a decent and sensitive man apart.

It was not just being caught out that hurt him; it was the dread that his family, friends and fans would see him no longer as a jolly representative of their clan but reduced to a fat, helpless shell, a slave to drugs. It turned out to be a chimera, but Hatton's regular vices were those perceived to be harmless in his culture: wild nights, boozing, pigging out. He could not make jokes about cocaine, though. Cocaine was not only illegal; it was the geezer's drug of choice, the currency of the underworld, showbiz and the media, and it wrecked something Ricky Hatton valued highly: his image.

Coke was an opponent every bit as slick and cunning as Mayweather or Pacquiao. It dressed him up, knocked him out. And he could not even hear the whirr of the video camera.