DALE YOUTH RENEWED
The great club is rebuilt and refurbished after Grenfell tragedy
THE Dale Youth boxing club lost everything in the tragic Grenfell Tower fire. But after the disaster it has now reopened with a brand new refurbished gym, rebuilt by the BBC television programme DIY SOS. The facilities do now look highly impressive.
“It’s all ready for us to go in,” said head coach Mick Delaney. “The gym’s lovely, we’ve got a full Olympic sized ring in there.
“We should be there this week. At the moment we’re still in the old temporary gym.”
“We lost [the gym], as you know, in that terrible tragedy in the tower block, we were only in there six weeks. Obviously that was the end of that gym but at the end of the day people lost their lives in there,” Delaney continued. “People were saying sorry about the gym but that was second to me because in the end we’ve have found somewhere to train and hopefully progress from there.”
The disaster did affect the club. “It obviously did, there was one guy in there, his three boys boxed for the Dale, they were juniors,” Mick said. “Their dad lived in the tower block, I went to his funeral, he was killed in there, so it did affect us. It was a knock back on everyone.
“It was tragic. People said what’s going to happen with the boxing now? Well, what do we do? We carry on.
“I’m sure everyone would want the club to carry on, keeping these kids off the streets. After two weeks I let all the boys know we’re back [in a temporary gym].”
That gym was Peter Liggins’ Box Clever gym, that occupies a former car park in Ladbroke Grove. Then one day people from the BBC’S DIY SOS programme came in looking for the Dale Youth club.
“The BBC came in one day and they said we’ve heard about your tragedy, your new gym and your tragedy in the tower, you’re training here,” Delaney said. Then two weeks later they said, “We’re going to do it, we’re going to build you a new gym.”
Delaney noted, “[They said] it’ll be done by so and so and it was done by the time they said. They were all nice people.”
The club was completely rebuilt. “They invited me round before they started building it and it was just derelict there,” Mick said.
“They invited us in again, Prince William came down, he spoke to me. A real nice fella, down to earth. He said 45 years you’ve been at this game then, I said yeah. It’s a lifetime. He said to me I wish there was more people like you in the country.”
“I’m still waiting for my OBE!” Delaney laughed. “But I’m not bothered about that, I just want to get on with the boxing.”
Many people deserve a medal, but Mick Delaney is certainly one of them.
Dale Youth has rejoined England Boxing after a stint with breakaway group the Amateur Boxing Alliance. “I’ve got some good 16, 17 year olds coming through, this year it would have been hard to match them,” Delaney said. “I haven’t rushed them. Obviously they’ll be in the NABCS this year, the championships. They’re looking really good.”
‘EVERYONE WANTED THE CLUB TO CARRY ON KEEPING THESE KIDS OFF THE STREETS’