GEORGE GROVES’S announcement calling time on his professional boxing career at the age of 30 is in keeping with a fighter whose career stands as a monument to a fierce independence of will, spirit and mind. 

The Londoner and avid Chelsea fan can retire satisfied that he does so as one of the bravest, toughest, most skilled and eminently watchable practitioners of the noble art these islands have ever produced. 

From his debut as a pro in 2008, Groves exuded the aura of a young man in boxing but not of boxing. In other words, he was never less than self-possessed, emitting a quiet, steely confidence that manifested in the aura of a fighter who seemed to exist on a different psychological and emotional plane than his peers.