A WEST Belfast boxing club is celebrating this week after being given the green light for a long-awaited refurbishment of its facilities. 

St John Bosco ABC has fought an eight-year battle to renovate its current home at the Conway Mill.

On Tuesday past, Belfast City Council granted planning permission to transform the decrepit unit into a fully functioning training gym.

The club has been waiting on a refurbishment since 2012 when the then Communities Minister Carál Ní Chuilín announced a £3.2million funding package to improve local boxing facilities.  Despite being placed at the top of refurb priority list at the time, the club has faced a long and arduous journey in the time since. 

St John Bosco Coach Gerard McCafferty explained: “Out of all the clubs in Northern Ireland we were put at the top of the list as being the most needy, reason being that we have no toilets, no water, no heat, the roof in the place is actually ready to fall in and there’s water buckets everywhere.

“My wife Christina who won a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games two years ago, even to this day, as an elite athlete, she has to get changed outside in her car before she comes into the club because there’s still no changing facilities for females. 

“It’s like a Third World facility. I’ve actually been to other clubs in the Third World countries that were better than ours.”

Gerard said the club, which celebrates 80 years in existence this year, hopes to see the refurbishment completed in honour of its President, Jordy Boyd. 

“Our club President Jordy Boyd is in very bad health, he lost his wife a few months ago  and as a committee we made a promise to Jordy eight years ago,” he said.

“Jordy said to us ‘I would just love to see this club finally back on its feet the way it should be, in my lifetime’. I’m hoping that the powers that be can do something to try to make sure that wish comes true, that Jordy will see the club completed in his lifetime. It would be great to get Jordy out of his hospital bed to officially open the club when that’s done. It gives him an incentive to hang on. He has been a great servant to the club for the past 45 years and, in fact, he has also officiated for the past 25 years as the Antrim Board Club Registrar.”

Gerard described the planned refurbishment as “great news story” for the area, and paid particular tribute Andy from the Conway Mill – for “keeping a roof over” their heads – and to Sinn Féin representatives Paul Maskey MP and former Councillor Jim McVeigh, who have helped drive the plans forward over the years. 

He said having “somewhere more welcoming” for the kids will make the job that “wee bit easier” for coaches who give up their own time to keep the club going.

“We have lost boxers over the years because of the conditions and I can understand parents not wanting to send their kids into a club that is falling apart,” he said. “But for these kids that have stuck with us for all these years it will make a big difference.

“In the past 10 years we’ve still produced Country Antrim, Ulster, Irish junior, senior and elite champions. We’ve still been producing. We’ve had Olympians – bronze medal winners – we’ve had Commonwealth Games gold and silver medal winners, and all of this from a club that has no running water, no heating and no facilities. What would it be like if we did have the facilities?

“That said, it’s not all about winning medals. My father, Sean McCafferty and my uncle Terry McCafferty, who kept the club going over the past 60 years, throughout the Troubles and through thick and thin, their ethos was always about getting the kids off the street, making them feel good about themselves, giving them something to look forward to. It wasn’t always about champions. That’s not what boxing is about.”

With planning permission secured it is hoped that the £200,000 project will get underway in six weeks’ time.