'Love, laughs and lots of boxing' - How a family-run Black Country gym is helping to change lives
For the Collins family, life is succinctly summed up by a sign hanging in their home.
“Love, laugh and lots of boxing.”
Amusing though it might be, in this case it is entirely accurate of a family who eat, sleep and breathe the sport and who, through their Team Pumpkin gym in Brierley Hill are helping to develop a promising young stable of amateur fighters and making a serious difference in the community.
Eldest son Ben, 20, a professional signed to Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions, is head coach of the gym set up alongside dad Carl, with younger son Luke among 120 boxers now on the books.
Then there’s mum, Jenny, who sits on the committee and has just qualified as a level one coach, having answered the call to help train the club’s ever-growing number of female fighters.
“She’s been in the corner for three fights so far and all three boxers have won,” reveals Carl. “So there is obviously a bit of banter going round right now among the rest of the coaches.
“For all the experience we have got, Jenny is three-for-three! She is the go-to coach right now!”
What began just a couple of years ago with Ben and Carl helping to train around a dozen boxers, has morphed into a bustling community club with 12 trained coaches and many more volunteers.
To describe it all as a long-term vision would be some way off the mark.
“Had you asked me, even five years ago, I’d have told you I was more likely to win the lottery than own a boxing club,” smiles Carl.
“This certainly wasn’t planned. It just kind of developed.”
It was when taking Ben to training at Priory Park ABC nearly a decade ago Carl first got a taste of coaching.
“It was a fluke,” he says. “One night they were short of a coach and asked if I would help out because they knew I did a bit of pad work with Ben.
