THE LANGUAGE OF BOXING
Nigel Travis tells Terry Dooley how without realising Moss Side ABC is teaching young people life skills
‘THESE KIDS JUST WANT A CHANCE. THEY WANT TO GROW AND BE BETTER’
I’VE got an interesting story for you,” said former professional fighter and standout amateur Nigel Travis. Minutes earlier the part-time actor and fulltime fireman had told me that he had been filming scenes in which he “got punched in the face by Nicky Platt” as part of his recurring role in Coronation Street.
I braced myself for the embarrassment of confessing that I do not watch the soaps when he put me at ease by asking if I would like to pop down to Moss Side Fire Station Boxing Club, which is adjoined to the fire station where he works and where he trains local amateurs in his sparse spare time.
A few days later I found myself standing in the gym. Travis was rigged out in his full fireman regalia and had warned me that: “I’ll have to cut this short if there is a fire somewhere.”
The father of two started the club alongside Mike Dillon and Curtis Mclardie in 2008 after being given permission to utilise an old storage space and has relied on donations and grants, including £2000 from former Lord Mayor Sue Cooley in 2014. Now, though, he is striving to attain charity status for the project and is hoping to get someone in to teach vocational courses.
The hard work in the ring is bearing fruit too. Conner Tudsbury netted a Youth ABAS win and went to the European Championships. Matthew Knipe, won a Schools ABA title and went to the Junior Europeans .
“We have planning permission to expand the gym and we want to also expand into education,” he explained. “I’d like to get them to do an hour of maths before they do their boxing. Some of them act gangster at first, then they see proper big lumps who come in and do what they are told, it works.”
The streets of Moss Side are starting to look different and feel safer. However, there are still problems, the crime rate is still steady and two youths on bikes tried to shoot me with their index fingers as I made my way past the nearby brewery. I survived, clearly, yet Travis told me that the initially suspicious local community has come around to the idea that a gym based on Crown premises can make a difference. “There was massive hostility towards fire fighters in the area in the past, we’d get bricked and all sorts,” he revealed. “They’d see our uniform and think we are just like the 5-0. Then they meet us and see what we are really like. Some of our best students have been some of the worst kids towards authority.
“We found that, without them realising it, we weren’t just teaching them how to box, we are teaching them life skills.
“We’ve also had kids who
wouldn’t look you in the eye, were getting into fights, and are so big the gangsters would want to use and capitalise on them for their own benefits. The kids who are in the gangs just really want to be part of something. There are fewer youth projects for them now [Writer’s note: youth services in Manchester have been cut by around a third since 2010] and some kid comes to them with a bit of money, puts their arm around them and makes them feel part of something. Then they think ‘F*** the system’ and end up getting 10 other aspiring kids into a gang ran by the lemons who just want to use them — now our gym is their gang.”
Despite not living in the area, the Salfordian feels an affinity with both the place and the people, the changing demographic of which means that he has to deal with all types of backgrounds and faiths; he also faces a daily fight against potential radicalisation as well as an ingrained notion that crime does actually pay.
Sadly, there are also the issues and challenges raised by a feeling of hopelessness that can creep into young lives in this increasingly disconnected and impersonal age. One of his former boxers, Withington’s Macauley Moran, struggled with ADHD and briefly fell back into gang life before taking his own life in September 2014 at the age of 16. His mother, Sarah, maintains that he was let down by local authorities, particularly the schools, Social Services and CAMHS (the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services).
Travis acted as a pallbearer at the funeral and knows the challenges faced by young people. “Boxing saved me from myself, I was an angry kid who was blessed with great parents [his father Kelvyn is a former Team GB coach]. I was never hungry in my life. Some of the kids around here do go hungry.
“These kids just want a chance, they want to grow and be better at what they want to do. I’ve got a national champion who won’t speak 10 words to me, but we talk the language of boxing. I’m also tapping into the area. Kids in Moss Side can inherently fight, as crude as that sounds. I might not have a lot in common with a Somali kid from the Alexandra Park estate yet one of my best kids is that Somali kid and he treats me like a father.”
Indeed, a handful of grateful parents have integrated the 2017 British Empire Medal recipient into their families by asking him to stand for their sons at their Christenings.
“I said no at first when they approached me to be godfather. I’d just done a safeguarding course so was thinking whether it would be allowed. I thought it might be crossing a line. His mum said if I didn’t do it then no one else would, so how could I turn that down? The kid is called Isaac. I’m also his younger brother’s godfather because they were christened at the same time. It has happened a few times since.”
The fact that Travis also assists Jamie Moore with his everexpanding stable of fighters is a bonus too. “The kids come in hoping to be like or meet legends like Carl Frampton or Ricky Hatton, so it is something aspirational for them,” he said before concluding on a typically optimistic note. “Kids who wouldn’t hold a conversation or look you in the eye are now going on to get jobs despite living in an area where the legacy is tied in with going to the penal system. This isn’t my manor, but I feel part of it. I have an interest in the local community and the pastoral care that goes with it.”