Farewell Andy Lee: One of Britain and Ireland's under appreciated boxers

Boxing lost another one of its good guys when Andy Lee retired this week.

Lee was one of British and Irish boxing’s most understated talents of recent years, holding the WBO middleweight title for a year before losing it to Billy Joe Saunders in December 2015.

It is his amiable demeanour and first-class decorum that won him over more than his reasonably-successful in-ring career, however.

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone within the industry with a low opinion of Lee, who was actually born in this writer’s old stomping ground of Bow, East London and came up through the ranks of the famed Repton Boxing Club.

Lee was often recognised as one quarter of a group of domestic middleweights, all of whom were expected to become world champion at some stage. And of himself, Darren Barker, Martin Murray and Matthew Macklin, only he and Barker managed it. Murray is now the only one still competing, and he faces Saunders in April in his latest attempt to join the club.

“I’ve actually achieved everything I wanted to in the game,” explained Lee.

“I’ve had an amazing career and an amazing life through boxing. It’s defined my life.

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“I kept myself available to see what my options were but none of the fights or none of the offers were big enough to get me to go back.

“I have responsibilities now to my wife and daughter and to be away from them for a fight it would take a lot now.

Relieved

“I have seen better boxers than me carry on too long so it is nice to be going out on my terms.

“I told my wife, first and foremost, but until today I never really how happy she was because she maybe did not believe it. She is relieved.”

Lee won 35 of his 39 pro bouts, became Olympic champion in Athens in 2004 and left the amateur circuit to be guided by Emanuel Steward in 2006.

After Steward’s passing, Lee joined up with Adam Booth and it was under Booth that Lee earned his big moment when he beat Matt Korobov in Las Vegas for the vacant WBO strap.

Just a quick look around online and across social media will tell you just how revered a boxer and a man Lee was among his peers, despite being the name most would inevitably struggle with in a pub quiz if asked to name the entire aforementioned quartet.

But at the end of the day, in a game where nice guys often finish last, Lee did far from. He hangs up the gloves safe in the knowledge that he realised his dreams and did himself and his community proud.

We can only hope that, win lose or draw, there are more Andy Lees on the horizon for British boxing.