Opinion most successful olympic sport still fighting for basics

“I’ve been close to going to jail, and only for boxing I could have gone away.”

That was what British fighter Tom Stalker told a reporter shortly before he stepped into the ring to take part in the 2012 Olympic Games.

In crediting boxing for steering him away from a life of crime, he was by no means unique. Similar tales can be found everywhere young men and women lace up a pair of gloves. 

Australian boxer, and reformed drug addict, Luke Jackson said this month that his coach “made me a complete fighter and a complete person... it has changed my life. Boxing has saved me.”

Throughout the world, from Belfast to Baltimore, the sport has been a positive outlet for thousands of young people, many of whom come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

“It’s a near given. Every boxing press conference I attend, if I chat with a couple of the fighters, I will find at least one who tells me the sport saved their life,” wrote New York-based boxing journalist Michael Woods recently.

There is a certain irony that what can be the toughest and most brutal of sports could well be the one which has done the most good for society.

It’s also a sport in which we have excelled. Ireland has won more Olympic medals for boxing than for all other sports combined.

Despite this, securing adequate funding, facilities and respect for boxers remains a struggle.

In May 2012, conditions in the home gym of Olympians Katie Taylor and Adam Nolan became major news nationally. With the London Games looming, the Sunday Independent ran a story headlined: “Katie’s gym has no toilet or shower”.

The article detailed conditions at the boxing club in Bray, pointing out that world champion Taylor, and other members of the club, had to “dash off to the nearby Harbour Bar” if they needed to use the bathroom.

Taylor’s gold medal success at the Olympics helped lead to the development of a €300,000 state-of-the-art boxing facility in Bray.

“We feel privileged now that we actually have toilet facilities!” the most successful female athlete in the country joked at the opening of the new gym last year.

Members of Moate Boxing Club will know where she’s coming from. The club’s gym was a damp and cold place with no heating, no running water and no changing rooms. The lack of toilet facilities meant boxers had to answer the call of nature in Supermac’s, next door on Moate’s Main Street.

All of that was before a fire last October caused serious damage and put the gym out of action completely.

A planning application from the club, for the refurbishment and upgrading of the gym, is currently before Westmeath County Council and a decision on it is due by April 22.

The club has been based in the former Moate fire station, attached to the old courthouse, for many years but county councillors will soon decide whether or not to renew that lease.

Several councillors have said they don’t think the club should be allowed to remain in the premises as it’s attached to a building which is now undergoing a costly refurbishment to turn it into a library. The council has not put forward any alternative facility for the club.

What all this means is that there is a major question mark over the survival of a hugely successful club which has produced boxers like former five-time Irish senior champion Denis Galvin and 2016 Olympic hopeful Joe Ward.

To date, no public figure has spoken out on the issue apart from 21-year-old Ward, who appealed for support for the boxing club in this newspaper recently.

It’s hard to imagine a threat to the future of - for example - a local GAA club or tennis club being greeted with such relative silence.

Ward is a supremely talented boxer who has been winning medals at European and World level since the age of 15. He has a very good chance of qualifying for the Olympics in Rio next year.

In 2013, he recovered from a freak knee injury, which he sustained in the ring, and went on to win a bronze medal at the world championships later that year. A civic reception from the council to celebrate his achievement was mooted, but never happened.

If Ward gets to the Olympics and wins a medal for Ireland it’s likely that he will be showered with plaudits, receptions, and people talking about what a great honour it is for Westmeath.

We shouldn’t wait until that happens to show our support for Ward and to help facilitate the next generation of boxers in towns such as Moate.