Frew praises Council’s backing of boxing clubs

Frew stated: “I work very closely with the two Boxing clubs , All Saints boxing club and Braid Boxing club.

“Both clubs are doing tremendous work in the town and further afield, training and mentoring young people, teaching them the noble art of boxing but also assisting them to learn new life skills, become more confident in life, making new friends, teaching them to respect discipline and hard work.

“The work these clubs do is nearly beyond measure which brings me to my point, there is no denying the good work Ballymena Borough Council have done to assist the Boxing clubs and when you talk to the organisers of the clubs they appreciate the assistance they receive.

“Council should try and measure the benefits of being involved in boxing, what It means socially, what it brings to the town and then seek out the weaknesses and work out how these can be removed to make the benefits even greater than they are at present.

“The future of boxing in the town is very bright with both clubs hoping to expand. Council is, I believe ready to assist, this has already been demonstrated.

“There will be funding coming down for boxing, the two clubs and the Council have to be in the best position possible to benefit from this funding, we need concrete plans in place ready to go, we need to outline the benefits for the town and society as a whole.

“Belfast city council have produced an Amateur Boxing Strategy, many of the actions within it will be actions that Ballymena do anyway but I believe it would be worthwhile assessing what is in this Strategy to ascertain if there is more that we could be doing.

“I wouldn’t want our clubs to be disadvantaged just because a particular council has decided to wrap the work that they are doing into a strategy, we must keep one step ahead,” added Frew.