The London boxing gym encouraging City workers to spar with former prisoners
Marnie Swindells won Lord Sugar’s cash – now she’s winning hearts and minds with a boxing gym in Camberwell. Adam Bloodworth meets her
Odds are you’ve either picked up a boxing glove recently or you’ve been around friends who won’t stop talking about it in the pub. The combat sport has become increasingly popular and City gyms are scrabbling to provide fresh types of boxing workouts and the latest sparring equipment. Third Space Moorgate is the latest workout space to offer a properly kitted-out boxing ring deep in the heart of the financial district.
Investment is also pouring in. DAZN and Channel 5 have both ramped up boxing programming, and the world of ‘influencer boxing’ is hugely lucrative, with fights between the likes of Jake Paul and Tommy Fury commanding huge audiences and many millions of dollars. A proposed charity fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg could end up being the most watched fight in the history of the sport.
Earlier this year, Lord Sugar chose former boxer and boxing entrepreneur Marnie Swindells as the winner of this year’s The Apprentice, landing her £250,000 in investment for her new boxing gym. The Bronx Boxing Club in Camberwell opened in February and the part Lord Sugar invested in – a gym space with a sauna, and a cafe for watching the matches – is under construction.
Swindells, who was the only female boxer at her club when she began the sport aged 17, hopes to capitalise on the hype by showing Londoners what real boxing is. She argues it’s worlds away from the pristine gloves hung up in neat rows at other City gyms. “It’s a very superficial relationship people have with Kobox, those sort of places,” she tells me. “They have their session and leave, no one knows their name. I’d go as far as to say I’ve made a family through boxing gyms. If we can give people that, it’s a huge tool in social mobility as well.”
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Swindells chose Camberwell to launch Bronx because it is more diverse than locations in central London. The postcode is home to corporate types as well as traditional London families who have lived in the city all their lives and grown up watching family members box. The sport’s working class roots stem from the east London boxing clubs that famously were frequented by the likes of the Krays.
“We’re getting city workers, young professionals, affluent people, but mixing it with people from the local estates, people who have just come out of prison. That is the most beautiful thing about boxing,” says Swindells. “And that’s why I say beyond boxing. It’s about the people you meet here.”
Some locals have already been told they can box for free if they can’t afford the £60 per month, provided they agree to help out around the gym. “They’ll sweep up or they’ll do content for us,” says Swindells. “So it’s not as hardline as it would be at a high end gym.” Interestingly, City workers have been offering to sponsor locals to help keep the gym diverse. Swindells, who is 28, would like to “formalise” a sponsorship scheme when the gym is fully up and running to help lower-income families access it, but is avoiding tiered pricing which she feels is “just another barrier. The biggest barrier, though, is getting people to walk through the doors for the first time. They might love boxing but are too scared to walk into a boxing gym – it’s about breaking that down.”
Swindells is doing something right on the diversity front: Bronx classes attract more women than men. A recent class had 26 women out of 30 attendees. “For women learning self defence, boxercise won’t keep you safe. But learning real boxing and how to transfer your weight, that will help you take care of yourself. We want to retain the integrity of the sport and make sure people are learning real boxing.”
City workers love the substance, they love the fact that it’s real, that there’s blood on the canvas
Marnie Swindells
So what’s attractive for City workers? “The biggest comment that I get is that it feels real, even down to the gloves smelling of sweat and the brickwork and the imperfections in the gym. It’s something that City workers, who are often living this very corporate, fancy life really lack. “They love the substance, they love the fact that it’s real, that there’s blood on the canvas. Even on days where they don’t feel like boxing they feel they can come in, have a chat and be part of a community. That’s a really powerful thing. I don’t drink so my idea of socialising would never be the pub.”
She says Lord Sugar came in recently and spent two and a half hours listening to her plans for growing the upstairs area at the gym. She brought him a mug that said ‘boss’ and herself one that said ‘the real boss’. “I don’t think he noticed and I was too nervous to point it out but I bought them especially for him.”
She says of The Apprentice that “It’s a genuine investment. It’s a sign of how he does his business. It’s not half hearted, he’s a man of his word. He’s chosen to make the investment and he’ll stand by that and make sure it’s steered in the best direction possible.” Show bosses confirmed to Morning Wire that there are no clauses for Lord Sugar to rescue his cash should a business make losses on his investment.
I ask what the mission statement is for Bronx and Swindells laughs and says she doesn’t have one. It’s perhaps the truest sign that Bronx is anti-corporate
As we finish our chat, two lads in the ring a few metres from us at Bronx are finishing up. They step out and swig from protein shakes, then carry on sparring on mats. We wander out into the huge, high ceilinged space, where exposed brickwork and the boxing ring are currently the only two attractions. The rest, including the café Swindells is so excited about, will soon fill the upper floor.
I ask what the mission statement is for Bronx and Swindells laughs and says she doesn’t have one. It’s perhaps the truest sign that Bronx is anti-corporate. She thinks for a minute: “I want to retain the integrity of the sport and make sure people are learning real boxing.”
She says of other boxing gyms: “They’ll never be able to say they’ve got the real fighters, the real kids from around the way. City workers can come and watch that, watch them grow, watch them spar. They’ll never be able to offer that. That, I think, is the pull for them. They feel like they’re a part of something.”
For more information go to bronxldn.com; image credit @thedannybarnes
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