There lays a wee sleepy hillside village called Chirnside in the borders of Scotland that’s situated roughly about eight miles from the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed just off the A1 that connects the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh with the capital of England, London and at 410 miles long it’s the longest road in the United Kingdom. There are a lot of people in Scotland that have never heard of the place, if you are travelling down the A1 you only have to blink to miss the sign. I was in my late teens before I knew the place existed; coincidently it was only through boxing in the 1980’s and back then it was more or less just a street with a small shop. The village has not changed that much since then and neither has their love for boxing.
Ian Duff drummed up an interest in forming a club in the village way back in 1979 because the nearest club was Dunbar almost 20 miles away and this was not a viable option. Ian and his friend Jimmy Blakie spoke with a local man Eric Hunter who had previously boxed for Edinburgh’s Sparta in his youth, a club that was made World Famous by Legendary boxer Ken Buchanan. They approached the local minister seeking permission to use the old church for the birth of Chirnside ABC, their request was granted on the condition the premises would be used as a community centre that would include and provide the community in its entirety. The pulpit and rows of seats had to be removed and a fair bit of work had to be done to achieve such a notion. They only had three punch bags and a cracking boxing ring. The atmosphere was tremendous at a Chirnside ABC show back in the day but it was greatly overshadowed by the home bakery and snacks that were provided by the club coach Eric Hunter’s wife Jean who was that talented with her home bakery if she were still in the business today she would put Krispy Kreme out the box.
The original club folded at the start of the Millennium in the year 2000. It was eight long years before talk began of re-starting the club but only one man’s actions spoke louder than words. Michael Black had boxed for the old club and won four Eastern District Junior titles and four Scottish Junior Titles back to back, and he boxed for Scotland 5 times as a junior and twice as a senior. He held a few coffee mornings that raised over £300 a time, this provided the basic essentials for a new club to start but they needed a boxing ring and not just any ring, it had to be a dismountable one so with the help of former boxer Martin Wood who worked for local firm John Thorburn & sons, Duns, he provided the club with four steel sleeves that could be fixed into the wooden floor and four steel removable poles all courtesy of the company, then it was just a matter of tensioning the ropes. However, Martin’s welding skill’s enabled him to weld brackets onto two of the poles that provided the use of four extra punch bags to go along with another five that hung from beams underneath the balcony. The club were affiliated in 2010 and sadly the old club coach Eric Hunter had passed away so along with becoming Chairman and coach Michael made a comeback to help get the name Chirnside ABC get back on the map. The last three years has been a steep learning curve and for a tiny village in the borders of Scotland to compete at District level against Places like Edinburgh, the Lothian’s, Fife and at National level against the whole of Scotland. Ben Grant has won Scottish Title’s at Novice and Intermediate level, Robbie White won the Scottish Junior Title in 2012 and is the current Eastern District 36kg Junior Champion, both Robbie White and Lewis Noon recently picked up silver medals in the Scottish Schoolboy Championships that took place last month and are currently training with the Scotland Squad hoping to make the British Finals. It’s an immense achievement that this village can contend with the whole of Scotland and even more astonishing the amount of miles they travel to compete. They have travelled past Aberdeen as far north as Macduff in the north east of Scotland; they have crossed the breadth of Scotland to Dumfries and been all over the Central belt of Scotland including Edinburgh and Glasgow. It took the club 5 hours to travel to Macduff, they would have took less time going to London.
The club initially were given £1000 by Robin Lees who owns the local Robins Nest Hotel and Robin continues to sponsor the club. The club now has people coming from Berwick, Duns, Eyemouth and Coldstream, they can expect up to 30 boys a night. Michael could not do this on his own; he has the help of Vaughan Duff (Ian Duff’s Nephew) Martin Wood, Malcolm Renton and Michael Blakie who are also trainers at the club. In the near future he plans to invade England but on Sunday 21st April Chirnside ABC will be holding their first home show in 20 years at the neighbouring Town of Duns.
There is a burning boxing eternal flame that burns away in Michael’s belly; he really is a man on fire.
If you are interested in joining the club or attending the show you can contact Michael Black on Facebook or e-mail james00sky.com
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