Golden anniversary just the start for Wolverhampton wrestling club

Wolverhampton Wrestling Club will celebrate 50 years of wrestling in the city and producing and training international standard wrestlers and mixed-martial arts fighters with a special event at the training base at the Guru Nanak Satsang Gurdwara in Wolverhampton on Sunday, October 23.

The club has produced three Commonwealth Games medallists and an Olympian in Amarjit Singh, who competed in the super-heavyweight category of freestyle wrestling at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

It has also been a community leader in promoting health and fitness and supporting people across the city, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The club was founded in 1972 by Nirmal Singh, Parshotam Singh and Lachman Singh who, according to the club's head coach and Nirmal's son Ranjit Singh, had used wrestling to help them settle into their new home after coming over from India in the early 1960s.

He said: "They were wrestlers in India and used it as a release from settling into a new country and and having to work in foundries and places like that.

"They carried on with the traditional wrestling in their own living room and that's where the group built up and used to congregate, then they found a small hall at Little London Community Centre in Willenhall.

"There were more people coming in and the togetherness of it started to build up, so it moved onto Lawson Community College for a few years and then came to the Gurdwara, where it's been ever since."

Mr Singh said the club had set out at the beginning as a way of bringing people from the Indian diaspora together, helping to provide a familiar place for them, then expanded to something for all people.

He said: "As time went on, my father found that a sport like wrestling was very universal and can be seen everywhere around the world, so when it became the actual club, he said it was for everyone who wanted to turn up.

"What we've found over the 30 years we've been based at the Gurdwara is that you'll have people come along and say 'We didn't think we'd be allowed in' because it was a religious place, but once they've attended once, they realise how warm and welcoming we are.

"We are very welcoming and diverse and anyone can attend, whether they are a boy, girl, man or woman."

The club has trained world champions such as Joe “Silk” Cummins, who won the Extreme Fighting Championship Lightweight World Champion in 2019, and a large number of national champions at different age levels.

It has also been a community champion, providing Sikh police officers with specially designed facemasks and providing food parcels to people across the community, with Mr Singh saying it was part of the ethos of the club.

He said: "We've always done community work, serving the community with a service the sport provides in terms of the wellbeing of people, not just physically, but also mentally.

"We did the facemasks and the food supply during the pandemic as well because, when the pandemic hit, a lot of the clubs and businesses were closed, so we decided to take the hard work we do on the mat out into the community where it was needed."

For Mr Singh, the legacy of the club is one he is still very proud of and said his father was still a regular visitor to see how the new breed of trainees were getting on and said the 50th anniversary was just the beginning.

He said: "We will be doing more work on the mental side, offering a wellbeing hub for people to come to and providing education and mentoring for children, giving them a good direction in life and helping with social skills.

"That's the beauty of wrestling as it's one of the toughest sports in the world and provides you with a balance and coordination and a grounding.

"We are working with Wolverhampton Council on several projects, including two new national kabaddi teams and plans to build a regional centre of excellence for wrestling and kabaddi, so lots to come in the future."

To find out more about Wolverhampton Wrestling Club, go to facebook.com/WolverhamptonWrestlingClub/