The Glaswegian - just 1-0 at the time - was good fun and could clearly box but talented fighters regularly flit in and out of boxing gyms and, after one fight, he returned home to Scotland.

That was almost nine years ago.

"A lot has happened, mate. A lot has happened since then," 35-year-old Brown (9-0, 4 KOs) told The Ring.

That is an understatement.

A few years ago, a quick Google search revealed that rather than building himself back up on the Scottish small hall scene, Brown was serving a prison sentence for assault.

Brown struggled with inactivity and frustration after suffering a serious hand injury on his professional debut and he started to fall into the grip of serious drug and alcohol addiction as well as mental health issues.

Whilst in Manchester Brown hid his issues well but already vulnerable, spending time alone in an unfamiliar city didn't help. Returning home made the problem worse and Brown's life quickly fell apart.

"A big part of it was isolation, using drugs to try and hide that and then coming home and still using," he said.

"It's not the place or the people, it's just me. I couldn't deal with me. A lot of demons and probably the rocky road of the leaving boxing started from after then. A very, very strange, difficult time.

"It was one of the best gyms I've ever been in. The people were amazing. It's just me, it's not anybody else. I'm an addict. I didn't know I was an addict. I was trying to hide certain things and do certain things.

"You can't have a life like that without it all crashing and burning down."

Brown was jailed in December 2019 and served every day of his 21-month sentence. Whereas having too much time to himself in Manchester exacerbated his problems, spending hours in prison with just his own thoughts for company helped him.

Brown was mentally strong enough to pull himself back together. He has been clean and sober for years and tries to help others by speaking openly about his issues and recovery.

Still, lots of people leave prison with the best intentions but without a clear path or plan and quickly fall back into old habits. Fortunately, Brown never lost his love of boxing.

Brown represented Scotland at the 2010 Commonwealth Games. He spent years as a member of the Team GB set-up and boxed alongside some of the sport's most famous names in the brutally tough World Series of Boxing.

His first few sessions back in the gym were a world away from those days.

"If I could send you the video of my in my first boxing session back when I came out of prison, I was almost 16 stone. I'm a big guy, I'm almost six-feet-one, I was lifting weights, and then I was eating," he said.

"When I look back at it, I'm like, 'Wow'. Honestly, it was like starting again. It was so funny, but it only took a couple of weeks for me to get back in the flow. That just shows you. After years and years of doing it, the old muscle memory and old flow came back, but the first couple of sessions were funny."

Things progressed quickly and Brown's longtime friend and former undisputed junior welterweight champion Josh Taylor suggested that he travel down to his Liverpool gym to do some work with former WBO junior middleweight champion Liam Smith.

Brown spent January 2023 helping Smith get ready for his first fight with Chris Eubank Jr but still had no idea whether he would be allowed to recommence his own career.

Securing a license from the British Boxing Board of Control involves more than being able to throw a nice one-two and fill in a form.

As well as having to prove they are physically capable of looking after themselves, applicants need to meet with a panel and satisfy them that they are also well placed to deal with the unique mental demands the sport places on its participants.

"I hadn't even been granted a boxing license yet and I was doing ten rounds with 'Beefy' three times a week so that's how long it took," Brown said.

"I got in good shape and in shape to fight again but was on the verge of, 'I don't know if I'm going to get a license, if this is going to work' but just committed to it. I knew if I didn't, I'd regret it.

"There was a lot of back and forth with the board. I'd been meeting with them, they were obviously asking about active addiction and violence I'd been involved in all that sort of stuff.

"I had to plead my case and basically say I'm a reformed character, which I am. They granted me my license and here we are now, boxing on massive shows, so I'm grateful."

Since being given the green light to restart his career, Brown has won six fights and looked better with each outing.

This weekend, things get serious. Brown's fight with the tough former British junior middleweight title challenger Sam Gilley (18-2-1, 9 KOs) will serve as the chief support to the WBC featherweight final eliminator between Nathaniel Collins and Cristobal Lorente at Glasgow's OVO Hydro Arena.

Gilley represents a sizeable step up in opposition but if Brown is to belatedly become what many in the sport once expected him to be, he knows that he can't afford a single backwards step.

"No slip-ups. Every fight is the last fight, that's what I have to admit," he said.

"There is no Plan B here. Sam's a cracking guy - he actually wished me a happy birthday the other day - and there is no dislike or anything like that. It's just business. I heard him mention about winning a title at 160 then going back down. There is no option for me.

"There is no Plan B. This has to work and this will work. This will happen. I fully believe that. Take care of Sam and then on to the next one."