Boxing<\/a> Championships in Bosnia in 2024.<\/p>\nNot only did Long Jr win gold, but he made history by never losing a single round, which is considered extraordinary.<\/p>\n
Perhaps his greatest fight was showing that autism can be a \u201csuperpower\u201d rather than something \u201cnegative\u201d, his father says.<\/p>\n
Long Sr\u2019s coaching began attracting local youths, inspiring them to stay away from juvenile delinquency, drugs and knife crime. He opened Longs ABC, a club with three rings on a small industrial estate, and created a boxing powerhouse that has produced four national champions, including two female ones.<\/p>\n
Now Long Sr and 15-year-old Long Jr are working with Nick Moorcroft, whose films include Urban Hymn, an acclaimed coming-of-age story about a young offender, played by Letitia Wright in her break-out role.<\/p>\n
The idea of seeing themselves on screen seems \u201csurreal\u201d, Long Sr says.<\/p>\n
\u2018This sports transforms lives\u2019 \u2026 from left: Billy Long Sr, Billy Long Jr and Nick Moorcroft at Longs ABC. Photograph: (await credit)<\/p>\n
But Moorcroft was inspired by their \u201cpowerful and uplifting, triumph-over-adversity story\u201d, describing Long Jr as \u201cone of the most gifted athletes in the world, whose autism actually helps him with a hyper-focus\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ironically, Long Sr says that, initially, his son had not seemed \u201cnaturally talented\u201d as a boxer. He and his wife, Samantha, ignored those who cast doubt on whether he had the mental and physical strength to compete.<\/p>\n
But he soon knew his son would become a champion, he says: \u201cI saw something in him and, over time, the hurdles that we\u2019ve crossed are nothing short of a miracle \u2026 When most kids would quit, he would go one more round.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long Jr feels that boxing has saved him from going off the rails \u201c100%\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I\u2019m outside the ring, I have my struggles,\u201d he says. \u201cBut when I\u2019m inside the ring, I feel in control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long Sr, now 36, understands the challenges faced by disadvantaged youths today. His own teachers never gave him a chance, dismissing him as \u201cstupid\u201d. He got in with the wrong crowd, experiencing street fights with knives and trouble with the police, until his own father got him into boxing, giving him \u201cself-worth\u201d and leading to a professional career.<\/p>\n
But he abandoned his boxing dreams in 2016 for the sake of his son: \u201cMy son has never been in trouble with the police. But at school he had severe learning difficulties and no one looked at him as I look at Billy. Now he\u2019s got respect in the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long also coached his two other sons: Mason plays for the youth team at Tottenham Hotspur and is a two-time boxing national champion, and Harry is emerging as a talented coach in his own right.<\/p>\n
The film, titled Long Shot and shooting next year, is as much about boxing as overcoming adversity. The cast will include kids from boxing clubs across the nation. Long Sr and Jr will have cameo roles.<\/p>\n
Moorcroft also co-wrote and produced Fisherman\u2019s Friends and Finding Your Feet, two of the most successful British independent films of the past decade, but Long Shot is a particularly personal film.<\/p>\n
When his parents\u2019 marriage fell apart, Moorcroft was a troubled youth in that same area of Chelmsford, being expelled from school, diagnosed with ADHD, becoming a young offender and repeatedly being arrested as part of a street gang \u2013 until, aged 19, a chance encounter with a Hollywood screenwriter changed his life and led to a career in film and television.<\/p>\n
He hopes that a film about amateur boxing will highlight the desperate need for government support. It was the ITV drama on the Post Office scandal, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, that had a real impact, despite an inquiry and years of campaigning for compensation payments.<\/p>\n
\u201cGyms like Longs ABC provide havens in tough communities, offering discipline, mentorship and purpose through structured training,\u201d Moorcroft says. \u201cThey channel aggression into positive outlets, build self-esteem, and foster community ties, significantly reducing youth delinquency and knife crime. Without financial support, many such gyms struggle to operate.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds: \u201cKnife crime and drug use are out of control. This sports transforms lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long Sr says: \u201cIn my gym, I\u2019ve got Muslims, Christians, people from the Traveller community, Chinese, black, white \u2013 and we\u2019re all friends. We\u2019re all one community. That doesn\u2019t happen anywhere, not in schools. There\u2019s no divide in boxing \u2013 and we really want to show that in the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n
He adds: \u201cWhen people join boxing gyms, they become part of something \u2013 and that\u2019s a family. Boxing saves so many lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moorcroft is writing the script for Long Shot, having just finished directing his next film, Mother\u2019s Pride \u2013 a comedy drama about the Great British Beer awards and the plight of British pubs \u2013 that will be released next spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He was an unbeaten professional boxer for three years until financial and mental health struggles forced him to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-102802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}