GLOVE & RESPECT
Barrhead club continues to punch above its weight 40 years on from first tourney
taught lessons in this hall that undoubtedly changed my life. I was taught about hard work and commitment, diet and routine, all sorts of things, and the club have taught the same lessons to hundreds of people like me.
“To get involved again when I came back to Barrhead five years ago felt like coming home. It’s a club but it feels part of the town. It feels like a family.”
Three training sessions are staged each week with boys and girls paying just £1 a time, the seniors double that.
It’ s not much but it’ s non-negotiable. Everyone pays. And that means everyone, as former world champion Jim Watt discovered when he once popped in for an impromptu visit.
However, the commitment of the club’s coaches is the foundation of its success. Breslin said: “There is no hierarchy, just everyone pulling together to do what we can.
“It is a big commitment but we do it because we want to, for the satisfaction of seeing kids coming in and getting on.”
Members travel from across Renfrewshire although Barrhead remains the bedrock of the club, whose place in the community is demonstrated by the number of local firms sponsoring them.
Ever since Eric McCarthy won the Western District lightweight title in the club’s f irst season, Barrhead fighters have secured a welter of titles – junior and senior – across the weight divisions.
Callum McInnes, treasurer and a club stalwart for 25 years, said: “It’s nice to see our fighters winning titles but we are a community club or nothing at all.
“We are seeing men who came in as boys and are now bringing in their sons and daughters.
“That’s what being a community club is all about.
“Winning titles is great but there is as much satisfaction in seeing boys and girls coming in and going away with skills that will help them.
“Boxing has never made a good boy bad but it can make a bad boy good.”
Ross Flockhart, 23, a former Scottish Universities heavyweight champion, sti l l trains at his hometown club.
He said: “It’s a friendly club. We’re all mates and everyone has a laugh but the jokes stop when the training starts.
“We’re here to train and to learn
and the support and advice of the coaches is a massive part of the club. I feel lucky to have been part of it.”
For the 10th successive year, the Sunday Mai l is teaming up with sportscot land for the Scottish Sports Awards.
The ceremony in December will not only salute our elite sports champions but the local clubs and dedicated volunteers who helped put them on the road to glory.
Light heavyweight Darren Tarr, 24, who joined the Barrhead club five years ago, insisted the coaches’ dedication at the grassroots of the sport is something special and deserves to be recognised.
He said: “The atmosphere is good, a great mix of older fighters and kids with everyone helping each other. “A great club is built on simple things but the most important is the coaches.
“Their advice and guidance is a big part of it but it’s their dedication – putting in all the hours, setting things up, doing all the stuf f that we don’t see – that makes the difference.
“The coaches know the game inside out but just as importantly they are reliable and dedicated.
“The club feels solid. It’s bui lt on strong foundations.”
The club has members from across Renfrewshire although most of the kids c ome f r om Bar rhead and many f rom Dunterlie, parts of which are among the most deprived neighbourhoods in Scotland.
The club now have hopes of a permanent new base in Barrhead where they could train every day on equipment that does not have to be taken down and stored after every session.
They have been talking to East Renfrewshire Culture and Leisure Trust where chief executive Anthony McReavy hopes to help after being impressed by their
achievements. McReavy said: “The club have been built on the hard work and dedication of their members and they are a credit to Barrhead. “It has not only survived but prospered during periods of upheaval and their determination to maintain and strengthen their strong roots in the community is commendable and something we wi l l do everything possible to protect and encourage.”
Until then, the Barrhead club remain training where their first gloves were laced 40 years ago.
More than a century before that, Shanks named his works after Tubal Cain, the first blacksmith according to the Old Testament.
And today, as they pummel the bags on the same spot , the boxers of Barrhead are building on the past to hammer out a bright new future.