AN AMATEUR boxing club in Swindon town centre can keep calm and cool for the foreseeable future after a generous donation paid for an expensive air conditioning system.

The Swindon Brunel ABC has seen a surge in successful sessions after moving to new premises above the Iceland, but ventilation issues made it difficult to box for more than an hour.

Fortunately, the club received £3,500 from Core Construction Ltd to set up an air-con unit in the training studio.

Brian Roberts, the club’s owner, said: “When we took on the building, we didn’t realise some of the problems it would have.

“Since it’s concrete, it gets very very cold in winter and when 35 children are boxing in there, all the sweat and moisture just falls to the floor and after an hour the place is unusable.

“A very kind gentleman called Jason Mazzotta gave us the unit just before Christmas, and it was installed by one of our club members.

“We tried it out last Monday after fitting it on the Saturday before and it was amazing.

“It’s made a huge difference straight away, the amount it cost was certainly worth it, Jason really saved the day.”

The boxing club, formerly known as the Horseshoe Amateur Boxing Club, changed names and premises in May 2018.

The team spent several weeks transforming a disused space on Havelock Square by cleaning it up and filling it with top-of-the-line equipment.

Dragging three boxing rings up a few flights of stairs was no easy feat, but the hard work paid off.

South Swindon MP Robert Buckland cut the ribbon to open the new clubhouse and since then, it has gone from strength to strength.

Brian added: “We have kids training here every evening - on some nights we have two sessions with a total of 60 different people, so it’s a very busy club.

“The children really enjoy it and some of them come here three or four times a week, which is excellent, they shake hands with us at the start and end of every session and say thank you to us.

“We’ve also done more painting and decorating since the new place opened, and held many events to raise money.

“At the end of the month, our members will start competing in boxing matches, everything’s going really smoothly, it’s been wonderful.”

After such a generous donation, is there anything else on the wish list?

Brian added: “Building funds is as important as the boxing because we need to maintain the support we have so that we can keep going.

“Our canvas is about to wear out, that’ll cost around £300, and we’ll need curtains for the summer because it got so hot last year at times that we had to cancel the sessions.

“It was 36 degrees up there on some days, which is not safe for young people to train in.

“We’re also on the lookout for more coaches to volunteer.”