Child Friendly Warwickshire

On Wednesday 17 August, Child Friendly Warwickshire were privileged to attend the celebration event for Lewis Williams being held at The Riverside Glasshouse, in Jephson Gardens, Leamington Spa. Lewis has cemented his status as a local hero, having won a gold medal at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games on Sunday 7 August.

Born in Whitnash, 23 year old Lewis is a heavyweight boxer with a number of titles to his name. Inspired by the legacy of Warwick and Leamington boxing greats Randolph and Dick Turpin, Lewis himself has become an important part of Warwickshire’s sporting history. Speaking at the celebration event, Mayor Parminder Singh Birdi of Warwick Town Council commented, “Lewis’ achievement is obviously amazing, but Cleary’s Gym is the real star. It helps young people achieve their full potential and although it's in the middle of quite a derelict area, its producing fantastic home-grown talent.”

Lewis was introduced to the waiting crowd by Jason Cleary, co-founder of Cleary’s Gym, who said, “On behalf of Lewis, we’d like to thank all his family, his close friends and supporters, for their tireless encouragement, and he credits them for always standing by him and keeping his feet firmly on the ground. As he has stepped up the levels, he has improved his ability and determination. Although Lewis’ journey to the top hasn’t always been plain sailing, in an unwavering pursuit of his goals, he has fought tooth and nail to turn his setbacks into comebacks.”

Child Friendly Warwickshire got the chance to ask Lewis a few questions about the most prestigious win of his career to date, and how he feels about inspiring children and young people in Warwickshire to get involved in local sports...

Jess Beddow interviewing Lewis Williams

What age did you start boxing?

Jason actually answered this in his introduction for me, I was 9 years old. With the support of my dad, Bob, I swapped Scouts for sessions at the local boxing gym, and quickly realised boxing was more than just a hobby.

How have you found the local support you’ve received? It’s a good turnout tonight!

Well, it’s always been that way. I’ve had great support in the build up to it [the Commonwealth Games], but it was afterwards that I’ve got this huge support – everyone was blowing up my phone, messaging me! The turnout tonight has been way bigger than I thought it would have been!

[Lewis pauses to wave at someone]

I suppose you get a lot of that now?

Yeah, it’s crazy, going around shops now and everyone’s recognising me because I’ve been on the TV, and people have been at the Pump Rooms or Warwick town centre watching the fights, or at home, or they’ve gone to the NEC to watch it live. So it was shocking, how many people are well into the boxing, even though we come from boxing history in Leamington. Yeah, it’s been shocking, and of course the big crowd that’s come here today.

Are you hoping your gold medal will inspire local children and young people to get into sports like boxing?

Definitely, I think it really pushes people in the right direction... because I haven’t had time to do anything wrong. All I've done is trained and I've had people at the boxing gym and any of the other gyms I’ve trained at, you’re surrounded by positive people, positive role models. You're looking up to, when I was a kid, looking up to other people that are boxing in the gym. You think, you know, I want to do that. I want to be winning those sorts of fights and titles. So, I was constantly chasing goals from a young age, and then, of course, that's just positivity, to grow and focus on your goals. Now here we are with this nice shiny medal! So yeah, everything's been good, and I haven't got into trouble because I've been so focused.

Yeah, you've been kept busy! What are your ambitions for the future?

Next goal is to qualify for the Olympics, then take the gold there. And after that, I’ll turn professional and be chasing my goals there, so this is only just the start.

What did it mean to you to win the gold medal in your home country, your home county even?

Yeah, I was very lucky to have it so close to home, and have this big support both from Birmingham and Leamington. Watching it it’s just been absolutely massive, so I’ve been very fortunate to have it so close to home. It’s going all the way back to Australia next, so I’ve hit the jackpot.

And what would you say to any young people who hope to be happy, healthy and skilled in sport?

Well I wouldn't say any quotes, no cringy quotes, but to be looking for role models, following after people and as well as that you can have people, like I've got Edwin in the gym, that will point you in the right direction to improve your fitness and health and everything. And your mental health is going to be really good alongside that, you know, if you're actually using your body rather than sitting at home and overthinking everything, you know, if you're using your time wisely and keeping your body healthy, everything else follows. So get the right inspiration and the right guidance from people; you know, they’re about, you've just got to be confident enough to ask for it and you’ll find them.

We also spoke to Edwin Cleary, co-founder of Cleary’s Boxing Gym, where Lewis trained...

What does the gym do for local young people in the area?

We look after the kids that nobody else wants to deal with. The kids that are normally troublesome, misbehave at school. The first line I say to the children when they come into the gym is you don’t have to be here, but you do have to go to school. I don’t raise my voice, I’ve done it about... in 15 years I’ve probably done it about three or four times, if that. And I don’t do it, the reason being that they have to want to come here. I know that a lot of people see boxing as a sport where, you know, we just punch each other. But if people got hit as often as people thought, they wouldn’t do it, my gym wouldn’t exist. We’ve got two girls at the moment in Turkey, they wouldn’t do it. So the sport is unique.

It’s a good way for kids to burn off energy as well, like you say, it can keep them on the straight and narrow.

100%, I don’t think boxing gets the recognition it deserves. You see the Mike Tyson’s, or you see the Anthony Joshua’s... not Anthony Joshua, he’s good as gold, but the Tyson Fury’s... that’s them trying to make as much money as they can in a short period of time.

You go to any gym in this country and I am – my parents are Irish – but I am the ethnic minority at my gym. But that’s our family. If you go to any other gym, it’s exactly the same. You can have Asian kids there, West Indian kids, African kids, I’ve got Polish kids, a kid from Zimbabwe, I’ve got another girl from Zimbabwe, they don’t even know each other, but they get along, there’s a lot of mickey taking, because they’re from the same country, the same culture. But we have no issues. Our sport doesn’t have a ‘kick it out’ thing because you can’t have an ounce of racism and be in our sport. Where society wants to get to, is what we like in our boxing.

How has Lewis’ success impacted Cleary's Boxing Gym? Where do you see it going in the future?

Well the last two weeks we’ve been shut down, a lot of the kids will be on holidays so we haven’t noticed too much... I’ve noticed a lot more with emails, with Lewis and people trying to get access to Lewis. I would imagine that around about September time, which is traditional, it will go through the roof.

So when kids go back to school, do you see a big increase in sign-ups?

Yeah, that’s when we’ll see a very big increase. I'll be honest, if we get that new building, the one we’re looking at, we’ll be turning kids away, it’ll be rammed, I know it will be, because I know what we’re getting through the door right now. Every one of our classes, we’ve got about 20, we’ve got six year olds, primary school kids from the age of six, and we’re full. We have two classes for teenagers, they’re full. We have an adults beginners class, that’s stupidly busy. I mean, we have to move stuff, and I have to go stand in the changing rooms and do a shout out to get people to change quicker to get more people in. But I know, the new place, if we get it, we could get another 30-40 in, and we’ll still fill it. And I want to start a women’s class in the morning, where mothers can drop their children off at school, no make up, in their tracksuit, women don’t really care, come down the gym, do an hour, then shoot off. But I’ve got no parking. But I know with our new place, we’ll have parking. They can drop the kids off, tracksuit on, don’t worry about your makeup, come in, blast out an hour, go back, shower, get on with the day. It’s brilliant for fitness, and especially with young children, they need to get into a routine with training and take some time for themselves.

Especially after COVID – that's also what we’re going to do, with partners in the future. We’re encouraging our bigger business partners to sponsor local gyms, local teams, and so on.

Yeah, I don’t think we’ve really seen the impact of COVID yet, we think we have but we haven’t. Our two girls in Turkey, people keep going, “Oh well, they’re doing really well, but they’ve been in the gym for five years” – no they haven’t, they’ve been in the gym for two years, because of COVID. We did set up a little WhatsApp group, just so it was better than nothing, and to be fair to the competitive boxers at the gym, they filmed everything and their parents filmed everything, and they worked on stuff at home, but it wouldn’t be what they need. It’s great to get back to face-to-face bouts and sparring. 

Thanks to Lewis and Edwin for their time, and thanks to Reece Singh Promotions for inviting Child Friendly Warwickshire along to celebrate a historic achievement for the county, which we’re working to make more child friendly.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Child Friendly Warwickshire, visit our website or follow Child Friendly Warwickshire on Twitter and Facebook.

If you’re interested in boxing as a sport or just to keep fit, visit the Cleary's Gym website and have a look at the many beginners classes on offer.

For more information about how you can improve your health and wellbeing in Warwickshire, visit Warwickshire County Council’s website or look at the Fitter Futures scheme.