Put through the wringer

Tucked away on an industrial estate in the otherwise leafy suburb of Hanwell is West London Boxing Academy, a club for whom community is something of a raison d'être.

There I meet Joe Theobald, 24, a sports science graduate from Loughborough University who is now a full-time boxing coach.

Once an amateur boxer himself, Joe is committed to teaching the art of boxing and the life lessons that come with it.

"Boxing’s one of the hardest sports in the world. It’s a mixture of speed, power, coordination, balance, timing.

"And mentally you’ve got to be bulletproof. Think under fire and play the chess game."

More to it than a scrap then? He fires back immediately.

"It's not Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots."

There's two sides to boxing training, the work that goes on outside the ring, which includes running (called 'roadwork'), skipping, working the heavy bag and other forms of cardio, and sparring.

Sparring is the closest form of preparation to a fight and Joe says for a gym to be worth it's salt, it must be well policed.

Most of what's done is technical sparring, which works specific aspects of a boxer's game, and if the temperature rises, rare though I'm told it is, Joe has no problem stepping in.

"I'll stop a spar in a heartbeat. If it gets heavy, I'll tell them to go and punch the heavy bag till you're exhausted and then come back in the ring."

Not all boxing clubs offer sparring, but Joe's frank about West London Boxing Academy's ambitions.

“We don’t want to be just a run-of-the-mill boxing club.

"We want to find the next superstar, and you’re not going to find that in Richmond-upon-Thames.”

Such is the thinking behind the proposed community boxing club that West London's looking to open on the Havelock Estate.

There are a few people living on the estate who already train at West London, but Joe believes this new satellite will help discover yet more untapped potential, the "rough diamonds" as he calls them.

It's an estate which doesn't have access to much by way of sports facilities, as I'm told there are three primary schools with one playground between them in the area.

There are further social problems with drugs and gangs, which youngsters at a loose end can sometimes get caught up in.

"There’s a lot of drugs over at Havelock and a lot of kids end up being runners."

And so the idea is to give them a passion, since boxing is a sport that requires commitment and discipline and, contrary to the professional image, for those starting out it doesn't help to have an oversized ego.

Yet Joe also argues that for kids who come from unsettled backgrounds, boxing can be a means of building themselves up.

"Some kids have spent most of their life being told their not good enough.

"But they then get a chance to feel like they’re actually achieving something, and probably the only time they get a well done during the week is when they come down here."

It's a safe space to learn some of life's more difficult lessons such as the value of hard work and how to deal with losing.

Another benefit sparring especially teaches is how to keep your cool, which Joe points out is invaluable for teenagers going through public exams.

Though West London is looking to join the Sport England-endorsed Better Health campaign, which aims to improve the nation's health across the board, there is an undoubted sense of its own mission.

I'm just about to leave when Joe mentions the club is due a visit from a couple of members of staff at Ealing Alternative Provision, who are looking to partner up with West London Boxing Academy.

It's a school to which pupils in the area are referred if they struggle to learn in a mainstream environment, whether that be because of behavioural difficulties or special educational needs.

Just as he finishes speaking, Kelly Waterton, head of teaching and learning, and teacher Caroline O'Connor walk on to the skipping rope-strewn floor mats.

Keen not to catch them off guard, Joe tentatively asks if they would be willing to put to me in their own words what they hope to achieve by working with West London.

They agree. And with that Joe shows off the club's facilities which they seem duly impressed by.

Passing gloves signed by Frank Bruno, Ray Jones Jr. and a host of other famous visitors to Hanwell on their way up the stairs, Caroline and Kelly join me on the balcony.

With little hesitation, Caroline tells me how Ealing Alternative Provision is hoping to enrich the curriculum it offers its pupils.

She says: "We want to offer them something during the school day that’s good for their health and fitness."

Almost as importantly however, and as though singing from Joe's hymn sheet, she adds the club can "give pupils somewhere to go without going straight home".

It's an opportunity the two teachers seem keen to take. As Caroline points out, "there aren’t many of these places around".

It's a major step in the direction this club is looking to head in, which will be really set in motion when the community satellite opens in a few months.

As I leave, I notice Joe is upbeat. He assures me this is because he's enjoyed the interview.

It's as though articulating the club's philosophy as a boxing gym and a business has invigorated him.

Indeed so swept up in positivity is he that he jumps up from his chair and offers me a lesson. Perhaps an opportunity to get in the ring myself?

I accept, but I suggest he keeps looking to find the next boxing superstar.

It wasn't so much choice as family tradition.

Harvey Morgan, now 50, was five years old when he was taught basic boxing by his granddad.

Over coffee overlooking the green, he tells me about Jack Morgan, nicknamed 'Cakey' after his grandsons' favourite treat, who not only engrained good technique in the boys, but also gave them a sense of the tougher side of life.

This was only too natural for Jack, who had spent much of his working on Brentford docks, at times making just enough to feed his family.

It was as though he knew it would prepare Harvey well for secondary school.

“I needed to handle 5 or 6 kids at school. Teachers couldn’t solve the bullying and my granddad said this was the only way you can do it, show them that if you’re going to pick on me, you’re going to have a hard time.”

So aged 12 Harvey turned up at his first boxing club, where he remained for two years before going to Old Actonians.

There he honed his craft, he tells me, winning medals and trophies and training with an intensity that impressed his coach, Ernie.

But it was never lost on him why he was there, as he illustrated with the following anecdote.

For context, the boy who Harvey talks about confronting here had apparently made a habit of picking on him and his brother, which resulted in an earlier contretemps at a party.

It was this final showdown with the bully that heralded the end of Harvey's junior boxing career. Having made his point to the tough kids at school, he felt he no longer needed it.

He recalls Ernie's dismay at his decision to quit, underlined by the coach's explicit refusal to release his boxing card, preventing him from boxing anywhere else.

“I said, 'you can keep your card, Ern, I don’t want it. I’m done. See you later.' With that, I walked out and never boxed again."

Team sports such as football beckoned and he's so nonchalant about his early retirement that it's impossible to imagine he had any regrets in doing so.

So what brought him back to the sport via legends then?

We start heading back to the gym.

He explains how his son, called Jack after his great-grandad and who is now 27, wanted to take it up as a child, being one of those boys who "wanted to get in amongst it".

"Jack was the path that took me back to the gym."

The first gym his son trained in however was a damp and mouldy affair, to the extent that some of the kids got coughs that lasted well beyond the sessions.

Harvey therefore decided to use his building skills to produce something better.

He found it under the arches of Kew Bridge and realised it was meant to be.

Eventually though, after 19 fights and with 17 victories under his belt, Jack quit for much the same reason as his dad, namely the allure of a team game.

Yet Harvey continued with Legends and remains as steadfast in his coach's ethic as ever.

"Give me the week and I'll make them stronger."

Like Joe at West London, he feels boxing can teach valuable life lessons, which he distils down to five pillars: discipline, strength, loyalty, courage and determination.

It's for this reason that he believes boxing should be in all schools. Not sparring, after all that doesn't happen here, but all the aspects of training.

It's boxing he credits with helping develop his rather-die-than-quit attitude to life, and he's philosophical about the benefits of exercise more generally.

By this he means the mood-enhancing effects of exercise, which he believes can only ripple out from the nucleus who attend his sessions like a wave of positive energy to those around them.

With that, we arrive back at the entrance. With a friendly smile he greets the mid-morning cohort and says goodbye.

I thank him and wish the new volunteers luck, silently hoping they've followed his advice on training and hangovers.

While Harvey puts the willing through their paces, I speak to welterweight amateur boxer Adam Latreche, 21.

He's been boxing since he was 11. As he tells me, I admit to being struck by how undimmed his enthusiasm is.

He wears a smile on his face that you may more readily associate with a keen novice, but he's trained with some intensity at Legends for five years and he's game for more.

“I’m good at the sport and I know I can go the whole way. I know I can win titles.”

The Olympics is unfortunately out of the picture, however, due to the untimely nature of the four-year cycle.

Instead he is looking to work his way up the rankings, sooner rather than later.

As I speak to him, he is training for the Lonsdale Box Cup in Glasgow on 24 June.

When asked how he got into the sport, Adam replies that he was always naturally inclined towards combat sports.

But rugby, judo and MMA eventually fell by the wayside, as he committed himself more and more to boxing.

About his chosen sport, the "sweet science", he is understandably passionate.

"There's so much more to it than two guys punching," he assures me.

As if to reinforce that point, he likens it to dancing, emphasising co-ordination over brute force.

And, to be clear, there's no doubt about his looking forward to making it his life for the foreseeable.

Like everyone I've spoken to, Adam has a clear sense in his mind of boxing's positive influence on the community.

It's something he sees through coaching, which he took up as he was studying sports science at college.

Indeed, it's how we come to wrap up the interview, as several children almost as animated as their coach join him in the wringer under the arches.