When looking through some old photographs, I came across a framed photo of the school’s Boxing Club of 1950. It set me off looking at a selection of old-school magazines to see which clubs ran during or after school in years gone by. I focused on activities outside the traditional school sports, as well as music, drama, art, and academic clubs. They give a glimpse of the hobbies and traditions of the past, and whilst no longer clubs at the Prep, it doesn’t mean interest in them has faded totally, as both at home and outside schools, some of these activities are still followed passionately. This article focuses on the Prep’s Boxing Club.

Having joined the school as a teacher in the 1990s, one of the first things pointed out to me in the Dining Hall was the iron rings used to attach the ropes for the old school boxing ring. The Boxing Club was indeed mentioned in the magazines of the 1930s and then after the Second World War in the 1940s and 1950s.

In 1947, one-third of the club were from the Lower School. In 1948, there were seventy members across Lower, Middle and Upper School. Numbers would fluctuate, and there were occasional notices encouraging boys to sign up for the club. The club featured training, exercises, skills, and boxing, with regular school bouts held against schools like Dulwich College, Haberdashers’ Askes, John Fisher, and Wimbledon College, with up to 13 individual contests in a meet. Home fixtures were held in the School Hall (now the Dining Hall). In a notable home match in 1954, a guest referee officiated, and Freddie Mills, the former world light heavyweight boxing champion, came to support the contest and spent much of his time before, during, and after the bout, signing autographs for an enthusiastic crowd of Prep boys and supporters.

There were regular annual school inter-Tribe competitions, and boxing club colours were awarded to team members. I assume that boxing was still available at many of the senior schools our boys moved on to.

In 1962, a Boxing Bill was proposed in parliament to ban professional boxing for profit. It led to many discussions about the pros and cons of the sport. While the bill didn’t pass, boxing was dropped from schools’ PE curricula and from extracurricular clubs, alongside growing concern about insurance and liability.

I am not sure exactly when the last boxing club session at DCPS took place, but I assume it stopped at this time, if not a little earlier. In the modern era, the actual training regimes of boxing, such as shadow boxing, pad work, bag work, skipping and movement, have been adopted by adult boxercise and boxing-style exercise classes as an ideal way to promote fitness.

Many famous boxing clubs and venues, such as The Thomas A Becket Pub, where, when I grew up, great British boxers like Henry Cooper trained in the gym above, have closed, but boxing clubs still exist and are now popular among all ages. Even if boxing has always been, and still, is a controversial sport, it certainly has many features in its training, sense of discipline, physical fitness and community which can make it an attractive option. With better-regulated amateur and professional boxing organisations, there are many boxing clubs open to children and adults of all ages across the country, even though it is no longer a school sport.

I’ve not heard of a Prep boy boxing at a club outside school in recent years. However, it is still possible to imagine, when the hall is empty and silent, the ring of the bell, the call of ‘seconds out’ in the Dining Hall, and the sounds of contests that once made it a very popular and active school club!

Craig Gordon