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   ;) ;) ;) ;)  New Boxing Gym Opened At Salford Lads ClubAt the corner of St Ignatius and Late Oxford Street sits a large boys club that you may have heard of, offering boxing, kickboxing, basketball, computers, table-tennis and football to hundreds of kids nearby.
Local lad and founder of Betfred, Fred Done, opened Salford Lads Club’s new boxing gym last night at the Ordsall venue. The redbrick venue has been standing for over 100 years, providing local lads a place to go in the evening and keeping them out of trouble. Fred donated £25,000 to fit the room with a new gym, boxing ring and hanging punchbags and speedballs. Fred himself started boxing here when he lived in Ordsall. He was born on Hyde Street, 20 yards from the club, and went to school just round the corner. I called him out for moving to Worsley, but he laughed and said “I’m still a Salford lad through and through. This club was our life, we met lifelong friends here. We’d have been out of the streets otherwise, this kept us together.” He started Betfred with his brother Peter in 1967, and the betting shop has grown into a national enterprise; with 750 outlet across the UK, it's actually the world's biggest independent bookmaker. On show tonight at Salford Lads Club there were 6 lads and 3 girls knocking the stuffing out of the punchbags. One ten-year old, Liam Doyle, pictured, has been boxing for 5 weeks now. Already red in the face from 10 minutes of solid punching, he said “boxing gets me in shape, it teaches me how to fight, it keeps me out of trouble basically. If I wasn’t here I’d just be sat at home, watching TV.” As coach Mike Dorrian said, “Boxing teaches them discipline, against what some people think, it actually takes the aggression out of you if anything. You can see the difference that this money has made. There’s boxing clubs all over Salford, like Arrows, the one that produced light-middleweight Jamie Moore, imagine what the same attendance could do for them?” Chek Whyte, of Secret Millionaire fame, also attended. And when we left this iconic Salford institution, as if to illustrate the whole point of the evening, walking down Trafford Road towards White City I saw a group of kids on bikes setting off roman candle fireworks at the Shell garage and getting shouted at over the tannoy. You see, out on the streets...getting themselves into trouble...
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