Lib Dem Councillor Connie Hersch gets her boxing gloves on as Ealing gets some Gold Medals

Powerday Hooks Boxing Club in Ealing has produced two boxing gold medalists at the Commonwealth Games 2026!

Liberal Democrat Councillor Connie Hersch attended Powerday Hooks Boxing Club to congratulate them. 

Powerday Hooks Boxing Club in Ealing has been established for over 10 years and is tremendously successful, as demonstrated by its two gold medal winners in the recent Commonwealth Games, Patrice Mughulazai and Damar Thomas. In a short time, the club has produced an Olympian boxer, James DeGale, who won Olympic and World Titles. 

Beyond the giddy heights of medal winners, the club plays an important role in the community. It supports and coaches young talent - any anyone who wants to learn boxing - with their enthusiastic volunteers, chief amongst them Head Coach Steve Newland.

The club has an outreach program which focuses heavily on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups and includes women and girls. In the Powerday Hooks Boxing Club, our two young winners have found a second home where they not only learned how to train and box but also to be disciplined, work hard (training 6 days a week) and be team players. Now as champions, they have become role models themselves to younger members and are happy to pass on their knowledge and experience. Achieving gold medals takes more than just talent; it needs a support network from coaches, club personnel, lots of volunteers and their families and friends - even if one of our champions' mums can't bring herself to watch the actual fights. 

The Powerday Hooks Boxing Club works in a very small hall in which they have invested a lot of work. It is part of the bigger sports ground of the Old Actonians (based on Popes Lane) with the Council as the freeholder. While the boxing club is supported by a bigger organisation, sponsors and volunteers, the Council has not been helpful in providing a positive answer to their future. The club so far has not been allowed to be a leaseholder in their own right and now faces a threat to their existence. 

Liberal Democrat Councillor Connie Hersch, Culture, Sports and Communities Spokesperson, said: “Liberal Democrats say that Powerday Hooks Boxing Club is a super example of how grassroots sports not only produce national sporting heroes but show the importance of volunteers, without whom none of it would be possible. The Council needs to guarantee the right of the club to have control over their own destiny within Ealing. Support of such institutions for the benefit of young people in the community is essential. It is a source of civic pride and produces winners!”