Boxing club's £13k investment has them flying off the ropes

The Horsham Park-based club opened their doors for the new season last week and with it have upgraded plenty of apparatus including a knockout new canvas.

The revamped gym has new punching bags, sparing balls and wall bags as well as a Sky Sports ring mat from the heavyweight bout between Anthony Joshua’s and Wladimir Klitschko.

All that has been possible thanks to a £10,000 Sport England grant and the rest of the funds topped up by the club themselves.

Club coach John Essex hopes the improvements will help boost the club’s numbers.

He explained: “It has all taken longer than expected but now it’s finished it was worth the wait. With the space we have, the gym works well.

“It gives us an opportunity to take on more members and accommodate more numbers and we are looking to build-up the junior membership.

“Sometimes parents are a bit worried about boxing and their children getting into it, so they can come in and have a look at how we are teaching the juniors here in terms of fitness and discipline.”

The club currently has around 30 juniors members and 25 senior members. And from this year they will take on junior from the age of just nine.

On the new equipment, Essex added: “We had to raise another £3,000 ourselves and that was from money we have got during the year.

“It comes from subs and our show at the Holbrook Club, last year obviously we the very first time we did two shows instead of just one.

“There are new punching bags, sparring balls and wall bags, there is quite a lot of new equipment.

“The canvas is pretty special and we have raised the ring to put it on there. It’s from Sky Sports when they were advertising the Joshua v Klitschoko fight.

“It makes the ring look that little bit better and it’s nice to have things like that in the gym. People have already come in and made comments about it.”

Senior training takes place on Monday and Wednesday at 5.30pm and there are also sessions on Sunday, while the younger club members train on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at 6.30pm.

The club also had a new doctor in the gym last week doing medicals as their boxers prepare for a busy season ahead.

For more information on the club call Dan on 07554453862 or John on 07809401566.