St Vincent's Boxing Club's fight to survive

The Star, Sheffield

Paul Watson, head coach of St Vincent's Boxing Club, talks about the club fighting for survival after Sheffield Council made it “caretakers” of a crumbling building and “put one obstacle in front of another”.

Transcript

00:00 Sheffield Council have been absolutely disgusting. They've made my life a misery for 10 years.

00:07 They've taken a club and actually just wrecked it and used me as a caretaker to look after

00:17 their building because it was getting wrecked. And they've done nothing but put one obstacle

00:22 in front of another in front of another. Then when they get to the end of it, start again.

00:28 So apparently it nearly cost me my life. I wanted them to come here and learn a trade,

00:34 get the GCSEs and do it all through sport. We'd have been probably one of the only ones

00:40 in country that did it. And now, it's just gone to pot. There's nothing left. They've

00:47 ruined the place. All the great ideas and everything that I had, it's just gone.

00:56 Yeah, and what's been the cost of all of this?

01:00 Financially to me, as an organisation, millions of pounds. It had been generated and was out

01:07 of pocket. Me personally, for thousands and thousands, Sport England's out of pocket by

01:16 80 odd thousand that was spent on here from them. But the time and money wise that I've

01:22 lost, I'd run into millions if I actually sued council for the amount of money that

01:26 they owe me.

01:27 What's been the cost on all of the club members that wouldn't have had all those opportunities

01:32 and things as well?

01:36 We went from this place being booming from when we moved to Soli Street and then moved

01:40 into We Are, to nothing. We've had two fights in three years because basically we've had

01:51 no way to train properly. We've been going all over the country out of my own pocket,

01:56 taking my lads to train at different gyms and to the spa in different parts of the country.

02:02 I pay for that. So this is what these don't understand. It's not just about boxing. It's

02:09 about I'm part of these kids' lives. I pay for it. So if I take them to spa somewhere,

02:21 it costs them. I take some of my kids to football matches. I took them out for me. It's not

02:28 just about boxing. It's about being part of their lives. It's upsetting.

02:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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