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Blaze-hit boxing club fears knockout unless temporary base is found in home town
Blantyre Miners’ Welfare Amateur Boxing Club literally hopes to rise from the ashes of a crippling fire – but they need help.
The Lanarkshire boxing community has stepped up in Blantyre’s hour of need and have been unbelievably generous.
But the club desperately need temporary premises in the town or they fear being forced to close their doors.
Blantyre Miners’ Welfare ABC was once one of the biggest in Scotland, with a packed gym and a waiting list of people hoping to get in.
Their list of past champions reads like a Who’s Who of Scottish boxing, and the coaching team is led by John Mcdermott MBE, himself a former Commonwealth boxing champion.
However, a fire on November 13 last year devastated the club, torching equipment and over 50 years’ worth of memorabilia.
Their boxers have been decanted to O’neil’s Gym in Cambuslang thanks to coach Brian Murphy on Tuesdays and Fridays, and Blantyre Volunteer Group provides a mini-bus, all of which the club is grateful for – but not being based in Blantyre is seriously hurting them, particularly with kids who have homework and can’t afford lengthy journeys to training.
Councillor Mo Razzaq and Blantyre Miners’ Welfare treasurer Andy Simm have been working round the clock to try to secure premises for them, but secretary Ross Naismith fears that time is running out.
He said: “It has been so hard. The fire in November completely gutted the Community Resource Centre. It was burnt to the ground. Iron girders were melted. It was an inferno.
“Fifty years of memorabilia went as well, photographs and newspaper clippings. We lost thousands of pounds of equipment. We had a proper ring, a sprung floor, and we can get over all of that, but the loss of that memorabilia is hard – you can’t get that back.
“We’ve been lucky because we’re at O’neil’s ABC two nights a week and the mini-bus takes them there, but the kids can have a long night, which isn’t ideal as they have homework and things like that. Parents aren’t always keen to see them head off somewhere else either.
“We refuse to lie down, but it’s getting harder. We’ve lost two