SAVE ALL STARS
The club is in a battle for survival and needs help, writes John Dennen
THE All Stars boxing club, which has been a fixture in the London amateur boxing scene, is struggling. They were well established at their Harrow road base, until a new landlord took over and subjected them to long running legal dispute.
“All Stars took the landlord to court and they were given a new lease. The landlord was told to give a 15 year lease and carry out works on the building,” club manager Muf Akay told Boxing News. “We were forced to go to court to try to get him to carry out the works.”
“Two weeks before the hearing then he signed contracts with a construction firm and scaffolded the building before the commencement hearing,” Akay said. “His barristers got the commencement hearing thrown out on two technicalities… We had to do that commencement hearing to actually get him to do anything.”
Even though the club is a registered charity, they have been hit with £50,000 worth of court fees that they must pay. They have started an appeal to raise funds to keep the club running. “What we were planning to do before we got hit with this cost was pay for our coaches to do mentoring courses,” Akay explained. “Because that’s so important… We were supposed to get a minibus years ago.
“We’ve been in limbo for the past five years. Thankfully our boxers all train hard, our coaches train hard. So last season we had a really good season in terms of wins. We had 53 wins to 22 losses, despite all this pressure the landlord’s been putting us through and the building’s terrible.”
There is more to the club than just the sport. “There’s nothing else [in the area]. This is why we’re such a focal point. Up to Juniors we have up to 50 kids training at any one time. For the Seniors we’re packed, 40 seniors, the Minors, we’ve got about 35, 40 Minors. It’s a mixture of boys and girls, there’s lots and lots of girls now doing boxing training. There’s nothing else. It’s a stressful time for us,” Akay said.
“With the boxing, it’s not just kids coming in and hitting the bags. You talk to the kids, you find out about them, you find out what their interests are, you help them. You try to mentor them and encourage them to do well for themselves. Obviously being in that area there’s gangs and lots of trouble and stuff like that. We get a lot of kids coming in who are already in trouble, they’re coming in with a tag on their leg and stuff like that. We talk to them and try and show them a better path. We’ve had lots of kids that were getting into trouble. Once they start boxing, we start talking to them and then they move away from that.”
There is a fundraising page to support the club. Visit: https://www. givey.com/allstarsboxinggym.