“The biggest success is seeing the smiles”
It was just after 6pm on a drizzly night in South Bristol. Sitting on the edge of a boxing ring was Ricky Leach, a 36-year-old journeyman boxer and coach. He smiled as he explained what was about to happen.
“They are all going to come in now. It’s going to be manic, chaos. But a good manic. It’s great,” he said.
Sure enough, through the doors came a steady stream of young kids, each with a combination of enthusiasm and steely-eyed determination. This was a new boxing club attached to the Sartan Club, and the buzz was palpable.
“We’ve been going since December,” said Ricky, before the mayhem ensued. “One week I think I counted we had 70-plus kids in here – that was a big success.”
This week it was slightly more manageable, but still the small boxing gym was full of kids as young as five, each finding their space to warm up with heel-taps, star jumps and knee lifts. Most importantly for everyone involved, the sessions are completely free.
This part of Bristol, on the Withywood side of the South Bristol ring road, is among the most socio-economically deprived in the city, and indeed, in the country. It’s a situation not lost on Ricky, who moved from his native Kent a few years ago and said he was initially surprised at what life can be like in BS13.
“It’s important that we can do something like this and keep it free, so parents don’t have to worry and kids can get to do something they like without being stopped because of money,” said Ricky, about the ‘From the Streets to Success’ initiative he’s started.
A community session at Kennedy’s Boxing Club in Withywood, South Bristol – club manager Ricky Leach(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach Plc)
“We want to make sure everyone can take their boxing to the level they want to get to. When they go a bit further, we’ve had kids who can’t afford the gloves and the boots and the kit, so we’ve made sure we’ve got a supply here too,” he added.
Ricky’s passion for boxing and his journey to this point is evident even in the name of the new club – Kennedy’s. “It’s my granddad’s surname. He was raised in a home run by nuns, he suffered terrible abuse there, but he absolutely loved boxing,” said Ricky. “He always did love boxing, it was the thing he loved most of all but he was never allowed to do it or get involved in it.
“So this club is named after him, in honour of him, and I hope what we do here will be about providing opportunities that he would have loved,” he added.
A community session at Kennedy’s Boxing Club in Withywood, South Bristol – club manager Ricky Leach(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach Plc)
Ricky himself grew up in the care system, and it wasn’t until he found the Kennedy family and the love of boxing that his early life turned around. After he came to Bristol, he worked over in Whitchurch and was mentored by the South Bristol boxing legend Wayne Bridges, whose death last month sparked a wave of tributes.
“When I was younger, I was brought up in the fostering system,” he said. “I didn’t have what every kid has to start in life, and I think boxing saved me, as well as my family now. It saved me a huge amount. So I want to give that sort of chance to the children who haven’t had a great start in life, to find something they actually enjoy doing,” he added.
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In the room outside, Charlotte Baker is looking after her youngest daughter while six-year-old Anayah is in the gym, on the skipping ropes and doing press ups as good as any of the boys around her.
“She only started this year,” said Charlotte. “But she absolutely loves it. Of all the things I try to get her into and to do, this is the first one that’s stuck, that she loves to do.
“I can tell that because she normally comes with some of her friends, but they aren’t here tonight, so I gave her the option not to come because she wouldn’t have them here, but she was like ‘no I’m going’.
A community session at Kennedy’s Boxing Club in Withywood, South Bristol(Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach Plc)
“The fact It’s free, makes a difference – we come Mondays and Wednesdays and I don’t know if I would be able to afford it otherwise. It teaches them self confidence, you want them to have a bit of self defence and be resilient.
“For her birthday she’s already asking for boxing gloves, and it’s just nice because here’s something she loves,” she added.
Running a boxing gym is always something of a hand-to-mouth existence, as any of the many boxing clubs around South Bristol will confirm. “Putting on sessions for free is only possible because of the sponsors,” said Ricky.
The main backer of the sessions is the Sweet Projects, a Slough-based infrastructure firm, with other sponsors including Care Gas, Therma Mech, Trojan Fitness and LS Design-Manage-Build.
“Without them we wouldn’t be able to do any of this,” Ricky acknowledged. “And we’re always looking to do more, to get more sponsors and to help provide something for the kids around here.
Kennedy’s Boxing Club’s free community gym sessions are only possible thanks to the club’s sponsors (Image: PAUL GILLIS / Reach Plc)
“We’ve got junior boxers now going through the grades, and getting up to national competition level, so even though we’ve only been going a short while, it’s working.
“But most of all the biggest success is seeing the kids smile when they come in, and they are still smiling when they walk out at the end,” he added. “Every kid that comes through, they give it that hundred per cent of what they can do. Seeing them smile going out of that door, to me that’s my success.”
For more information about Kennedy’s Boxing Club, click here.
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