Bushey boxer Miles Shinkwin has called time on his professional career at the age of 31 and said the sport was no longer worth pursuing.

Shinkwin's last fight was a defeat against Kirk Garvey at York Hall in March, leaving him with a professional record of 15 wins, five KOs, five defeats, two KOs.

Looking back on his career, the boxer described himself as an underachiever, but claimed he was still happy with what he had done in the sport.

"I'm a massive underachiever, but that's life," he said.

"Everyone can't all achieve what they want, it's a very hard world as I found out. Some people will say I underachieved because I didn't train hard enough, but you could never fault my effort.

"Every trainer, coach or fitness coach that's ever met me has said they've never met a harder trainer than me. Some things just don't work out and that was my boxing career - it was never through lack of effort.

"I got some stick on Twitter from someone who said I was a bum - a boxing bum. Someone else said if you asked an 11-year-old kid if they would have my career, he'd snap your hand off, so that was nice, someone else saying that.

"I won seven national titles, travelled all over the world to something like 20 countries, represented my country, I was national champion as an amateur and a pro and no one will ever take that away from me now. But should I have been more? Probably, but I wasn't. That's life."

The retirement will give Shinkwin more time to spend with his family and in particular, his recently born son.

However, he claims he wants his new child to have nothing to do with boxing, claiming that talent is seen by those who run the sport as secondary to personality.

"I want him nowhere near a boxing ring. The thing is, as an amateur it's a great sport, there's still some politics involved, but not as much as for professionals.

"Now, with me being a pro for seven years, I've seen what it's like - it's not even a sport, it's purely a business where talent is the bottom of the pecking order.

"If you can sell tickets and you're crap, that's fine, they'll pay you money and they'll put you on the telly, no problem, you'll fight muppets for three years. That, for me, is not what it should be. I think talent should be rewarded, hard work should be rewarded and that's how it is in professional sport. In boxing, it's the other way.

"I would like him to use his brains a bit more and go down a different route."

Shinkwin focused on his third fight against Joel McIntyre as the highlight of his career, stating that the pressure made it all the better for him to win by unanimous decision.

However, he believes his final fight against Garvey should have gone another way, causing him to re-evaluate his part in the sport.

"I suppose beating McIntyre in the third fight was probably the best one," he said.

"There was a lot of pressure on that fight because it was one-all and the loser was probably going to retire and to win that fight as easy as I did was good.

"The last fight I had, I had the best training camp - I know everyone says that pre-fight - but I broke every personal best time, I lifted every weight heavier, I felt like I was in my best condition ever. I was physically the best I've ever been.

"It didn't go my way for whatever reason, although a lot people thought I should've won and we wouldn't be having this conversation now if I did.

"The money I'd get for a fight now, isn't worth it. My missus said to me, 'what are you still doing it for?' because the money I got for the last fight wasn't bad, but it wasn't great and it's only going to go down.

"I've got three kids and just had a new baby boy eight weeks ago, and in boxing you get paid once every three, four, five months. Sometimes you don't fight and that's it, there's no money coming in. I said if I got a good fight coming in, I'd fight and instead we got offered a fight for a title I won five years ago and it was for less money than I got paid then. Do I want to go back and fight for less money for a title I won five years ago? Not really. "

After leaving the sport, Shinkwin said he is now focusing on his plumbing business, which he has been running alongside his boxing career since he was a teenager.

He still helps out at his old boxing club once a week, but says that he does not want to get into coaching and that an injury he sustained ahead of his last fight is still taking its toll on his body.

"I've started about six months ago helping out my old amateur club on a Tuesday night," he said.

"It's a family run gym, run by my family. I go there on a Tuesday night just because people helped me when I was younger and it's my way of giving a little bit back, but I don't foresee being a coach or anything.

"I've been a plumber since I was 16 or 17 and I'm just going to crack on with that now. I've kept my hand in it since I was a pro during the last six or seven years, so I'm going to give that a go.

"I haven't done anything for a while. I said I had the best training camp for my last fight, I did, but the week before the fight I did my back in my last sparring session.

"It didn't affect the fight in the slightest, I would like to say it made me fight badly, but it didn't. It wasn't until the next day that I had to crawl down the stairs and since then I've been seeing osteopaths, physios, been to the doctors, everything you can think of, I've been to see someone and it's still the same now and I still struggle sleeping because it's aching so badly. That was involved in it as well, that hasn't made me any better."