AMATEURS
Matt Bozeat profiles Ajmal Butt and the Leicester Unity boxing club
Profiling the Leicester Unity boxing club
LEICESTER UNITY ABC coach Ajmal “Hudge” Butt has been made an honorary citizen of his home city.
Butt set up the gym on the troubled Beaumont Leys estate in the East Midlands city in 2010 and his success stories include Paige Murney, silver medallist at the last Commonwealth Games.
“The Police Commissioner said he could find me a bigger gym, but more kids means more problems and I’m already flat out,” he said. “I could have 30 amateurs if I wanted and I get asked to work with schools as well, but at the moment, my focus is on getting my fighters as far as I possibly can.
“I promised my mum I wouldn’t stop until I have produced a world champion.”
Leicester’s only previous world champion, Chris Pyatt, is part of a coaching team that works with professionals Lyon Woodstock and CJ Challenger, while amateurs Vinny Huczmann and Brad Bethel both made their mark this year, winning European Junior bronze and reaching the Elite semi-finals respectively. Butt isn’t just proud of what his boxers achieve. “We’ve had 18 kids from here go to university and college,” he said and that’s a hugely impressive statement for an estate where lives are often lived out beneath the throb of police helicopter blades overhead.
“Around here,” said Woodstock, “you punch first, ask questions later.
“You don’t want to end up in hospital saying: ‘I wish I had made the first move.’ People carry knives because they don’t want to lose fights, they don’t want to lose their reputation.”
Woodstock was one of the first through the doors of the Unity gym, which Butt opened in response to his brother Adil being stabbed to death.
“I wanted to do something positive,” said Butt. “I wanted to make a difference.”
Butt was the right man for the job. For years, he had patrolled the estate as an official peacemaker. If there was trouble and nobody wanted to ring the police, they called for ‘Hudge.’ “Not a lot of good happens around here,” said Butt. “It’s bleak.
“I knew there were talented, smart kids around here, but they were just wandering around the streets at night, the same way I used to.
“The kids around here needed something to get them off the streets.
“I think they get me, we understand each other. The bond between us is strong.”
Butt decided the best place for the gym was above a dentists. “It’s handy for when I knock out people’s teeth,” laughed Woodstock.
Butt knew the premises from his youth. “That’s where the youth club was,” he said. “I’ve been going there since I was six or seven years old.”
The gym’s methods were tough. “There was no ring at the start,” said Woodstock, “so ‘Hudge’ would put us all in circle and then pick two of us out to spar. It was like the movie Fight Club.
“I remember thinking: ‘Whatever this is, I love it. This is what I want to do.’”
Butt explained: “I believe that before you learn to box, you have to be able to fight. You need minerals to fight and I’ve challenged my boxers right from the beginning. That’s how we grew up.”
Butt’s chuck-them-in-at-thedeep-end methods worked. From the start, Leicester Unity turned out champions. Unity became ABA affiliated in 2012 and in only their second season, Murney and Clayton Orchard won national honours. Woodstock was an Elite semi-finalist and current rising stars include Isaac Huczmann and Cam Mahi. Both are unbeaten and Butt estimates that in seven years of competing, his amateur boxers have won 70 per cent of their contests.
The club’s reputation has spread way beyond these shores. “I got a message from a girl in Singapore saying: ‘I want to come and train with you,’” said Butt. “A few weeks later I got a text from her saying: ‘I’m here, when do we start?’” Nur Sabrina is a member of the Singapore amateur boxing squad and Butt said, “It turned out her dad is a businessman and his best mate is from Leicester. He knew about us and Nur asked for sponsors to pay for her to come here.”
She raised the funds and with Butt in her corner, Sabrina won the Esker Female Box Cup in Dublin last October. “She went home after that,” said Butt, “and I got a message asking if I will coach the Singapore national team.
“I told them: ‘Maybe in the future, but I’ve got a job to finish here.’”