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22/08/2012
Sectarianism In Boxing: Sandy Row Club Releases Report
A boxing club on Sandy Row has compiled a 57-page report outlining sectarian attacks on its members in nationalist areas.
The report from the mainly-Protestant Belfast club will make for sobering reading after the positive attention given to the sport in recent weeks, as Belfast boxers Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan both won bronze medals for Ireland at the Olympics in London.
The PSNI said it was treating a verbal abuse incident in North Queen Street in 2010 as a hate crime.
But a boxing club in a Catholic area of west Belfast said it had not experienced bigotry.
The alleged physical and verbal assaults, allegedly from followers of the sport, not participants, took place while Sandy Row boxers were fighting in places like west Belfast in the ten years to 2010.
Club secretary Ian McSorley said: "It's a very frightening experience, for anybody to take up boxing, get in the boxing ring... never mind getting abuse or stoned."
Mr McSorley claimed a lot of promising young boxers had quit the sport because of what had happened to them, and the problem had affected other clubs from Protestant areas.
The club has put forward an eight-point plan to combat the problem including holding tournaments in neutral venues and wearing of neutral colours during events.
But Gerard McCafferty, a coach with St John Bosco Boxing Club in west Belfast - where Michael Conlan trains - said it was the first time he had heard of such incidents.
He said: "If it has happened, I sympathise with Sandy Row boxing club. I have never experienced anything like that there."
(NE)
The report from the mainly-Protestant Belfast club will make for sobering reading after the positive attention given to the sport in recent weeks, as Belfast boxers Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan both won bronze medals for Ireland at the Olympics in London.
The PSNI said it was treating a verbal abuse incident in North Queen Street in 2010 as a hate crime.
But a boxing club in a Catholic area of west Belfast said it had not experienced bigotry.
The alleged physical and verbal assaults, allegedly from followers of the sport, not participants, took place while Sandy Row boxers were fighting in places like west Belfast in the ten years to 2010.
Club secretary Ian McSorley said: "It's a very frightening experience, for anybody to take up boxing, get in the boxing ring... never mind getting abuse or stoned."
Mr McSorley claimed a lot of promising young boxers had quit the sport because of what had happened to them, and the problem had affected other clubs from Protestant areas.
The club has put forward an eight-point plan to combat the problem including holding tournaments in neutral venues and wearing of neutral colours during events.
But Gerard McCafferty, a coach with St John Bosco Boxing Club in west Belfast - where Michael Conlan trains - said it was the first time he had heard of such incidents.
He said: "If it has happened, I sympathise with Sandy Row boxing club. I have never experienced anything like that there."
(NE)
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