Beyond school sports: why youth clubs are key to young people’s success

The proudest moment of my life came this summer, when I won a bronze medal for boxing at the Olympic Games in Paris. I competed for the Refugee Olympic Team and made history as their first ever medalist, but for the past 15 years I’ve lived and trained in Bolton.

At home Elite boxing club, where I train, held watch parties and celebrated as I progressed through the rounds, my friends and family were screaming their support at their TVs, and the coaches and youth workers at Bolton Lads and Girls Club (BLGC) – the youth club where I first stepped foot in a boxing ring – messaged me to tell me how proud they were of my journey.

But for a kid like me – an 11 year old who’d arrived in the UK from Cameroon and was shy, nervous, didn’t speak much English and wasn’t very active – the thought that one day I’d win a medal at the Olympics would not have even crossed my mind.

A new report published earlier this month by Sport England shows that 52% of young people in the UK are still not meeting the required 60 mins of physical activity per day. This has remained largely unchanged over the past two years, and I can see why.

Schools are where most kids will do sport through their PE lesson. I enjoyed sports at school but there’s so much pressure on teachers to deliver the curriculum that the majority of young people will get two hours a week of PE at school at best. Since 2011/12 the Youth Sport Trust has found that PE lessons are being more and more squeezed, with 41,000 fewer hours of PE being taught over the past 12 years. It’s clear schools simply can’t solve this problem on their own.

I enjoyed playing sports at school – things like rounders, cricket and netball. But the place where I really discovered my passion was my local youth club. Boxing wasn’t an option at school, I’d never even thought about it, but having access to a place in my community where lots of different activities were offered, and I could try them all, was a game changer for me.

The first time I went to BLGC I stood outside, too shy to go through the door, when one of the youth workers came out and welcomed me in. He took me under his wing and helped me to try the different sports the club had to offer. I gave football and badminton a go, but it was when I came across the boxing ring that I knew I’d found my place.

BLGC is part of the OnSide network of youth centres, and across their 15 youth centres the network provides a massive 120,000 hours of sport a year. With just two hours a week of PE in school, it’s outside of school where we can really encourage kids to get active, but cost can be a big barrier. OnSide’s research has shown that 29% of young people have had to cut down on out of school activities because they’re too expensive, with sport being the most likely activity to be dropped. But a Youth Zone costs just 50p to enter, something that was crucial for me.

I went to BLGC after school three nights a week and my boxing improved, as did my English. Before I went there I felt quite lonely, but I began to make friends, gain confidence and I got better at skills like leadership, communication and teamwork. It was like my second home and my boxing coaches, Dave Langhorn, Nick Rayner and Andrew Hill became like father figures to me, keeping me motivated and giving me the self-belief that the Olympics was a realistic goal.

Not every young person who steps inside a youth club will go to the Olympics, but every single young person will benefit from the encouragement, support and boost to their self esteem that they find there.

If we’re really serious about getting young people active – with all the benefits to confidence and physical and mental health that brings – then it’s not just time inside school that we should pay attention to, time spent outside school is just as important. Because without my youth club and the brilliant youth workers who supported me, there’s no way I would have been able to fulfil my dream this summer. And that’s a path that should be open to all young people to follow.