On the ropes after losing their venue during Covid, North Down Boxing Club has fought back to now thrive, giving its young people a chance to spar in the gym but also punch above their weight and take on the challenges they face in wider life as well.

“Where we live, there’s a lot of anti-social behaviour,” says the club’s coach and founder, Lesley McMillan.

“There’s a lot of drug taking and antisocial behaviour where we live too, and kids can be drawn into that life of doing stupid stuff that you shouldn’t be doing.”

For the young people of Bangor, Co. Down, the boxing club provides a lifeline away from anti-social behaviour and an opportunity to develop themselves physically, mentally and socially within an environment that is designed to help them.

“We’re a team. We’re a team,” McMillan stresses in everything she says and does for the boxers. “We’re a team because kids need to be part of something. They like to be part of a team. If there’s any problems, anything wrong, they can come to us about anything.

“While it might say we are only open three nights a week, we’re actually in there five nights a week and then we’ll do a Sunday with the kids as well.

“If we weren’t here, they would definitely be out running about doing anti-social behaviour, because there’s nothing else around here besides us where we live for the kids to do.

“We have all nationalities and races in the club. We have a couple of kids who are refugees, the club is their life. It’s all they do outside of home. They’re in the club six days a week.”

One of the club’s initiatives is a free 12-week programme that’s aimed at supporting more people to get involved with and benefit from the impact that McMillan and her coaches are having on their boxers.

“This gives them an opportunity to try it out, to see if the kids are going to stick at it,” she continues, aware that parents don’t always want to pay for something new when their children may drop out shortly after starting.

“This actually came about because on a few weeks ago, the weather was really good, and all the kids went to the beach and there was really, really bad anti-social behaviour.”

They came with a solution to address it head on.

Their programme is able to be run for free because the club used crowdfunding to cover the costs but, as McMillan notes: “Funding is very difficult, very difficult.

“If someone gave me a blank cheque right now, I could buy the building I’m in. We have a big open space and I could get a roof on it. I could get more equipment into it, like strength and conditioning equipment. I could get a changing room put in it. I could get decent heating in the gym.

“Some of the older kids pay to go and do strength and conditioning sessions. If we had those, if we had that equipment, it would be another good thing to be able to do with the kids.”

North Down Boxing Club is part of Sported, a UK-wide network of 5,000 grassroots sports organisations who work to impact their communities.

Alongside access to and information about funding opportunities, Sported provided the club with a Volunteer Consultant, someone to provide advice and guidance to allow them to box clever.

“I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, basically, and we got a mentor, and she helped us,” recounts McMillan.

“She helped us to get a grant to get started up, to get stuff for the club and she helped us with the business plan and health and safety and constitution.”

Sported’s National Manager for Northern Ireland, Judith Rankin, said: “Lesley and the team at North Down Boxing Club are doing a great service to their community in giving the young people a place to go and something to focus their time and energy on.

“This 12-week free programme is just another example of how they’re trying to engage more and more young people, impacting and improving not just their lives but the wider community around them as well.”

Part of what McMillan and the club do is also about helping give new opportunities to their young people, which includes taking them to spar in other gyms and a recent trip to Italy to meet and train with boxers from a different country and experience a new culture.

“It broadens the kids’ horizons because there’s more to life,” she adds. “They get to meet new people, they get to go to new places. They make friends. All the kids I took away to Italy, they’ll be friends for life.”

As ‘marching season’ and a time of heightened tension in the area gets underway, McMillan is steadfast in supporting her team: “You might get the odd kid who will not come in, but mostly we will try and keep the kids in the club. Most other boxing clubs will be closed now. We’ll be staying open.”

You can find out more about North Down Boxing Club, their programmes and activities on the club’s social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

For more information about Sported, the support on offer or to give your time as a Volunteer Consultant, visit www.sported.org.uk.