Gerry Lavelle - a worthy award winner
Gerry Lavelle has put years of hard work and commitment into boxing. During his time in the sport he has collected various awards for his efforts in coaching young boxers, and recently scooped the Barclays Community Sports Award. This was presented to him and St Gerards Boxing Club last month for his dedication shown towards training boxers in Chichester.
As a lad Gerry was a talented footballer and played for the Celtic boys club, but at the age of twelve his family moved south to London, and this is where Gerry caught the boxing bug. It all started at the St Peters boxing club in Woolwich where Gerry got his first taste of boxing. It wasn’t long before the coaches at St Peters realised Gerry was going to be a talented boxer, and he proved them right in 1979 at the Royal Albert where he won the London Light-Flyweight title.
Gerry was involved in a good era of UK amateur boxing and was on the circuit at the same time as Jim McDonnell and Lloyd Honeghan. He continued to box at a high level and was rewarded with an England international call up versus the USA and gained his full international vest for England against Denmark in 1980.
Gerry was close to turning professional at one point, but for one reason or another it just didn’t happen. He joined the Royal Air Force, and continued to box, winning a forces bantamweight title.
After his stint in the Air Force, Gerry realised that coaching was the way forward for him, and turned into Coach/Boxer at the St Peters club. After a while, he moved onto the Eltham gym, working alongside Richard Atkins and Steve Barrett. This is where he achieved his full coaching badges.
Another change of location saw Gerry land in Chichester, where his baby, St Gerards Boxing Club, was born and is still going strong 10 years after its inception. The club started small with around ten fighters on board. The coaching, match-making and travel to competitions proved a lot of work, so Gerry decided to get some help. Now, Gerry’s brother Billy, Gareth Ferguson and John Mills all having their coaching badges as does Ash Sutherland who has a sports science degree too. The gym is buzzing, with between 20 and 35 fighters using it on a regular basis.
Gerry is now involved in the pro game too. His son Billy Lavelle has recently turned pro and does his training separate from the amateur side of things at St Gerards. Gerry and Billy make the short trip to Bognor Regis to use the state of the art VK Boxing Gym.
The team are no strangers to winning awards as they picked up an “Outstanding Contribution to Sport” award in 2011 and a couple of the guys at St Gerards have won Coach of the year award’s from Chichester District Council too. Unknown to Gerry, he was nominated for the Barclays award by a member of the councils youth offending team, who had seen what a good job Gerry and his team have done with the youngsters from the local community. You can imagine his surprise when he was informed he had won.
Speaking to BoxRec News after receiving the award Gerry commented: “I was very, very humbled by winning the award. The club also received a £1000 prize. I realised the importance of boxing for dis-interested youngsters who have nothing else to focus on and am really pleased the club have been recognised for it.”
