Monkstown Boxing Club have started their second training session outdoors following the closure of their training facility.
The boxing club has been an anchor tenant of the county council owned Mounttown Community Facility since the facility opened in 2010. The short notice closure left over one hundred boxers, including promising boxing stars, without a place to train.
A second public training session took place today outside County Hall in Dun Laoghaire to protest against the closure. Boxing club members have received support from many public figures, including Richard Boyd Barrett, who attended the first street training session on Wednesday.
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Coach and committee member Donal Fitzgerald told Dublin Live: “You have to remember there are hundreds of thousands of euros going in to build that place. It’s a very sad situation when children are forced out on to the streets to train on very cold nights.”
The boxing club are currently requesting to have autonomous use of Mounttown Community Facility, as well as their own set of keys to the premises. The frustration stems from the fact that other groups still had access to the facility during the closure, but not Monkstown Boxing Club.
The club’s most promising members include Jack Marley, a European Under-22 champion who is competing for a spot on the Olympic Team. However, Donal says that the lack of access to training facilities has put a strain on all of their 100 members, which includes children as young as five.
The coach argues that the Council don’t grasp the significance the boxing club has as a sporting outlet, claiming that Monkstown Boxing Club merely want to have the same recognition as other sports clubs in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area.
Donal added: “We’re contributing to reductions in the likes of anti-social behaviour. If the kids are in the gym with us, they’re not out on the street. They are not getting into trouble. We’re producing international champions yet we’re not allowed into our club seven days a week. God only knows what we could do if we were allowed enter every day as it should be.”
Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council confirmed last week that Mounttown Community Facility would be closed from Friday 28 October at 3pm until Monday 7 November at 8:30am. They declined to comment further on the closure.
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