I'll keep up my fight to help city kids until the day I die

Youth worker Alan on his years at helm of community boxing club that's changed lives

- By CONAILL CORNER

A BOXING club founder who has spent more than 30 years helping the children of Liverpool has vowed he will never give up in his fight to keep young people out of gangs and off the streets.

Alan Walsh told the ECHO: “I'll do this until the day I die, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Alan, founder of Anfield and North Liverpool Boxing Club, works on the front line, bringing young people - boys and girls - off the streets and into the gym, giving them a safe space “where they can still hit someone - but legitimately, and win trophies for it”.

The 54-year-old, from Old Swan, has been a youth worker for more than 30 years and opened the gym 19 years ago after seeing, first-hand, the impact that youth violence was having on the communities of north Liverpool.

Speaking to the ECHO, he said: “The kids had nowhere to go and nothing to do. When we spoke to them about what it is they want, they came up with a boxing club.

“They were saying they'd like to be involved in boxing. It was classed as a hard sport where you're still a ‘manly man’ to be involved in it. We decided to use boxing as a tool and a vehicle to engage these young people.”

The club, which Alan says has “grown and grown, year after year,” actively educates the local community with presentations and workshops for kids and their parents. It aims to help young people by providing interventions, medical care and counselling.