Apologies if anyone has already seen this but from today's Daily Star - I thought it made for an interesting read. One in the eye for the boxing abolitionist lobby. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mum Kim Torr, 44 from Bristol, got her son off the streets and into the ring. I stared at the pile of empty lager cans on the living room carpet. "Have you been drinking?" I said to my 15-year-old son Danny? He just shrugged. "You can't go on wasting your life like this" I sighed. "There's nothing wrong with me" he said. "You're just having a go at me". I was at my wits' end. Since being expelled from school for fighting Danny, my youngest, had been drinking, smoking and staying out. I'd lost count of all the times I'd searched for him after dark near our home in Pucklechurch, Bristol". "Please Danny", I said. "I'm so worried about you". Again, he just shrugged and slumped back into the sofa with a scowl. I loved Danny but he was so lost I didn;t know what to do to help him. Thinking back, he started to go off the rails at just eight years old, when I was diagnosed with vulva cancer. "You'll be OK mum", he said when I broke the news. Unlike his brother Carl, now 23, and sister Leanne, now 20, he bottled up his emotions. I'd been a devoted mother but suddenly I was in and out of St Michael's hospital in Bristol. I wanted to be there for him, to collect him from school and iron his pale blue uniform - but I couldn't. And Danny reacted by playing up at school. "When I picked Danny up from school, he was taking on a gang of six lads in the playground", my dad Maurice told me when I was in hospital for five weeks. "They were saying things about you mum", Danny said in his defence. "They were saying you were going to die". My heart ached for him. Danny was trying to protect me, but was angry and upset. His dad was there to look after him, but when I got out of hospital our marriage broke down and suddenly I was a single mum of three. Danny got into more fights and was eventually expelled. "What am I going to do with you?" I'd say. My other kids had never been in trouble so I didn't know how to handle him. "What's going on?" I said as a blue glow lit up the living room. Outside was a police car - with Danny slumped sheepishly in the back. "Danny's been in a fight" said the officer. "But he's been honest with me. He's a good kid". I listened in despair as Danny explained what had happened. An older lad had tried to 'charge' Danny for walking through a park and had insulted me. Danny, who had been drinking, threw a punch, breaking the older lad's jaw. We'll have to wait and see if he presses charges, the policeman told me. The next few weeks were awful. Danny continued to drink and smoke. I can't stand to see you waste your life I told him. He was such a lovely boy, so likeable and full of energy. So when in January 2008 we were told the lad wasn't going to press charges, it felt like a second chance. You should think about going to a boxing club the policeman suggested. With a punch like yours you'd be good at it. It sounded like a good idea. Maybe if he took some of that aggression out in the ring, he'd keep out of trouble. What have I got to lose? he said. So, at the end of January we went down to Spaniorum Boxing Club in Compton, Greenfield where the coach, Jane Couch, grabbed Danny. There's so much better out there for you she said. If you end up going inside what will then be like? Do you think your so called friends will come and visit you? They won't. Jane was like a boxing therapist. She was tough but genuinely cared. She'd had a hard life and boxing had saved her I could tell she wanted the same for Danny. Want to have a go in the ring? she said. Danny and Jane sparred but after three minutes he was out of breath. If you're serious, Jane said, you'll have to give up smoking. I'm not going too smoke anymore, Danny said on the way home. He stuck to his word and after his eight weeks of training twice a day his fitness had improved. After 12 weeks, he was ready for his first amateur fight, which he won. All I want to do is box he said. But Jane's gym was really for professional boxers we needed an amateur club. So, since November last year, I 've been helping to run a new amateur club called Spanny Ammys, for children aged ten to 18. Everyone knows Danny and his story. You could be a professional one day, his coach told him recently. And that's where he's heading. Boxing has saved him from going off the rails. He'd be on his way to prison or worse. His pent-up energy and anger now gets taken out on a bag or a willing opponent. Some people say boxing is dangerous, but if you do it right no-one should get hurt. Now Danny's life is back on track. I'm so proud of him.
There's about a million kids you could say that about. Good on the kid but it's not exactly a success story yet as boxing must be the sport with the largest number of lads chucking it after a year or so.
