A Croydon boxing club evicted from its home of five years has found a new space for its members but it needs to raise £25,000 to fit out the space.
New Addington Amateur Boxing Club (NAABC) says it is nearly ready to reopen, having been forced to suspend its sessions for disadvantaged kids due to the eviction, and is calling on the public for one last push of support.
After being forced to shut in February when Croydon Council sold off its previous home, the club has now secured a permanent base at Meridian High School. Now it just needs the cash to make the space suitable for its needs.
“We are at that stage where we are doing our best to raise that and get in there,” said NAABC Head Coach Bill Graham. “Everything is on the right path, it’s not going as fast as we’d like it to, but we’re so grateful that we still have a club and a home.”
In September last year, Graham received the news he had long feared, that Croydon Council planned to sell the land on which the club was located. The site, located at 90 Central Parade just across from the main shopping street, had been home to the club since March 2020.
It was one of many council-owned assets put up for sale as part of efforts to tackle what the authority describeds as a “toxic debt” of £1.4 billion.
The council has said it is working with all tenants and groups affected by these disposals, which have included car parks and shopping complexes. But for NAABC, the sale meant an immediate and unexpected closure, leaving 400-plus members without a place to train.
The new space at Meridian High School on Fairchildes Avenue is a disused home economics room full of sinks and other kitchen equipment. Graham said: “We have to clear all of that out, which involves cost, hence why we are raising money at the moment.”
The club needs to raise £25,000 to make the space usable. This will mean gutting the room, making new toilets, and making space for the club’s ring and equipment, which have been stored at the school since earlier this year.
On its fundraising page, the club said it wants to continue “coaching discipline and life skills to the next generations”, and described itself as “an asset to the upcoming youth of today”.
MyLondon has been highlighting the threat to the club as part of our Don’t Cut the Heart Out of London campaign aimed at saving community venues from closure. Our campaign helped secure the future of another Croydon sports club when Norbury Park Lawn Tennis Club raised the funds it needed to buy the lease off Croydon Council.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service earlier this year, former NAABC member Aaron Coates described the importance of the club to local young people. “I hear a lot of people dying up here; they are often friends of my friends,” said Aaron.
He added: “If it weren’t for boxing, I don’t know what I would do. It would be bedlam if they moved this place.”
Young members are desperate to return to training. “There’s a bit of impatience going on, but they are over the moon that they have still got their club,” said Graham. “I keep reassuring them that we will have some normality eventually, but at the moment it is just not practical for us to open.”
The club is still finalising a licence agreement with the school, but Graham admits they can’t move in until the funding is in place.
He also praised the support the club has received from Labour’s Croydon Mayor candidate Rowenna Davis and Natasha Irons MP. He added: “The school itself has been fantastic, and we are just reaching out to the public for a bit of help now.”
The fundraising page can be found here.
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