The Fitzroy Lodge Amateur Boxing Club (ABC) is a non-profit making, charitable club,
run by volunteers and supported by donations, grants and member subscriptions.
Fitzroy Lodge provides a safe environment for competitive boxers to train and compete in the sport of amateur boxing, by teaching boxing skills that engender discipline, respect, honour, self-control and a healthy life style.
While our primary function is the training of our competitive boxers, the gym is also available to other groups in the community, such as keep-fitters, recreational boxers and youth groups, as long as this does not interrupt or have a negative impact on the competitive boxers.
Competitive boxing training times
(only for boxers who want to compete in amateur boxing competitions)
Junior boxing training: Mondays & Wednesdays 5.00 – 7.00pm
Senior boxing training: Tuesdays & Thursdays 5.30 – 7.30pm
Opening times for all boxers and keep-fitters
Mondays: 10.30am – 3pm
Tuesdays: 10.30am – 3pm
Wednesdays: 10.30am – 3pm
Thursdays: 10.30am – 3pm
Fridays: 3.30pm – 8pm
Saturdays: 10am – 12pm (members only)
Details
The Arches, 180 Lambeth Road, London SE1 7JY
Tel: +44 20 7928 0146
Email: info @ fitzroylodge.club
Follow us on Twitter for details of fixtures
Our facilities
Whether your goal is to get fit and into shape, to take up boxing as a hobby or to box competitively, Fitzroy Lodge can offer you all of that plus more.
We welcome men and women of all ages, shapes and sizes and we offer separate changing and showering facilities for women.
We have two rings and over twenty assorted punching bags, from the real heavy ones to the ever so light, to the uppercut bags, floor to ceiling balls and the speed balls. We also have a weights and cardio area with running machines, rowing machines, cross trainers, stationery bikes, as well as a sauna for after you have trained.
You can come to one of our keep-fit classes or arrange private one to one sessions with one of our experienced and qualified coaches. Those looking to box competitively are advised to come to one of these first, and if ready, you will be invited to one of the senior or junior training sessions.
Why not try our KO Circuit intensive training that teaches all the basics of boxing and will help you achieve ultimate fitness? Our trainers will take you through stretching, skipping, shadow boxing, bag work, tuition on the pads and even supervised sparring.
Fitzroy Lodge on port-magazine.com
Our boxers
Fitzroy Lodge ABC is one of the longest-established Amateur Boxing clubs in London. Since 1910 the Lodge has produced many national, regional and divisional Amateur champions. Some, like Dave Charnley, Cornelius Boza-Edwards and David Haye have then turned ‘Pro’ and boxed for World Titles. Most of our members will never be champions but the Lodge helps them to “be the best they can be”.
Mark Reigate, Head Coach
Mark is an ex-boxer with over 100 amateur bouts under his belt. He has been working as a boxing coach with young people for more than 10 years. He is currently head coach at the Lodge, where he trains the senior boxers, runs the club and organises both charity and open boxing shows/dinners.
Mark has seen how the interaction and focus that being involved in a structured training programme, and particularly the discipline involved in boxing has changed many young people’s lives. Mark feels that boxing saved him from a downward spiral into a life of crime, so has a particular passion for engaging troubled and disadvantaged young people in boxing fitness. In doing so, he has delivered training sessions and mentoring to young people who are out of education employment and training, have learning difficulties and behavioural problems, those on the edge of care and gang members.
Mark prides himself on being able to deliver fun training sessions, which provide the young people with an outlet and an opportunity to build their own self confidence and self -esteem, whilst also giving them the opportunity to experience the discipline that is required when engaging in boxing training.
Mark has also been involved in coaching numerous celebrities for both charities and films. Daniel Day Lewis, Jack Osbourne and Ben Shephard, to name but a few. He is also qualified as an ABA senior level three coach and can deliver the boxing tutor awards and he is a qualified youth worker and mentor.
Carney’s Community
Fitzroy Lodge proudly supports and works closely with the Carney’s Community charity. Carney’s Community provides one-to-one mentoring, focusing on education, employment and personal development, alongside group activities (such as sport and the arts) to help realise the potential of young people that suffer from crime and violence. To find out more, visit carneyscommunity.org.
Our history
Way back in 1910, Lionel Baly was an eminent surgeon practising in Lambeth. At a time when the local youngsters would have been running round with empty stomachs and no shoes on their feet, Lionel would have been known as a man of some means. But far from being a typical “upper class toff” of the day, remaining aloof from the local riff-raff, Lionel had a real social conscience.
To help the local kids get off the street he set up a sporting organisation and called it the Fitzroy Lodge. It started off as a multi-sport’s centre, but over the years became a dedicated Amateur Boxing Club.
Fitzroy Lodge went from strength to strength and settled down to business in a gym sporting three rings in Walcott Square. Things changed dramatically in 1939 when Hitler sent over a big hairy pilot who dropped a bomb on the club and destroyed it.
After a nomadic existence in the years that followed, the club finally found a permanent home under the arches in Lambeth Road in 1946. The arch had been used as an air raid shelter and was more or less derelict. But undeterred, the lads rolled their sleeves up and made it habitable. It’s a shame the boys of ‘46 can’t see the club today looking more like a palace than a bombsite.
The 50’s and the 60’s saw Fitzroy Lodge emerge as one of the top clubs in the country with champions too numerous to mention at every level.
From the early 60’s onwards, the consistency in coaching methods was assured when Mick Carney and Billy Webster hung up their own gloves, to concentrate on passing their impressive wealth of knowledge to new lads. Over the last forty years, they have been one of the most successful partnerships in amateur boxing producing many ABA champions.
The club still sends its warriors out to do battle in the famous white vest with black hoops and long may it continue.
Mick Carney MBE
Mick Carney MBE (1935 – 2011) was the club leader and head coach of Fitzroy Lodge Amateur Boxing Club (ABC) from 1955 – 2011. During this time Mick made many achievements, such as working as an England coach and then, in 1972, taking over as head coach to the Canadian Olympic boxing team. Since then Mick decided to focus his attention on training up numerous successful boxers at the Lodge.
It is a difficult task to pick only a few examples of boxers that Mick has trained and supported throughout his years. Some of the more famous are: Cornelius Boza Edwards, former WBC super featherweight champion; Ted Bami, former European light welterweight champion and British light welterweight title challenger; the late Nevill Cole, 3 time ABA champion; and more recently David Haye and Jamaican Olympic prospect Jovan Young.
Mick’s greatest achievements however were with the boxers that did not achieve great fame or success in the sport. It was with the generic (every day) boxers, whom he taught how to exercise self-control, show courage and behave with dignity. It can be guaranteed that these youngsters would not only do their best in the ring, but that they would both win and lose with dignity and never question the referees decisions (a trait that unfortunately is not seen in a number of other sports open to young people).
Mick was described by those that knew him as fulfilling the role of father, friend, advisor and boxing trainer. He nurtured youngsters that came through the Fitzroy Lodge Amateur Boxing Club to instil a sense of self-discipline, a sense of self-belief and a sense of belonging. His many achievements were recognised, in 2003, when he was awarded his MBE for services to amateur boxing. However, Mick was far more than a boxing coach and supported young people to be the best they could be, not matter what field of expertise they chose. As Mick used to say: “Most of our members will never be champions but ‘the Lodge’ helps them to be the best they can be!”