A BOXING club on Oxford’s biggest estate is on the hunt for a new home to call its own.

The Blackbird Leys Amateur Boxing Club, one of the oldest organisations on the estate, has been based upstairs at the community centre for more than 30 years.

But the room it rents is small and dark, with no windows or shower facilities.

Head coach Tony Gibson said: “It is just getting too small now, we have got so many people coming in.

“With the under-17s, we’ve got 20 coming to every session and then even more for the seniors.

“So once you put the ring up, we’re in trouble.”

The club meets four times a week and over its long history, has seen hundreds of men, and a number of women, walk through its doors.

It also has a proud history of producing first-class boxers, including current star 21-year-old Jack Hill.

Mr Gibson said: “I would say about 90 per cent of the lads here are from the estate.

“The boxing really helps them.

“Quite a few of them haven’t got jobs at the moment but coming here does them so much good.

“But after every session, we have to take the ring down once we’re finished, along with all the bags and everything.

“It can get very tedious after a while.”

So to mark the Olympic year, the club is now on the hunt for a new home somewhere on the estate.

But Mr Gibson said it was proving difficult for the non-profit making organisation.

Mr Gibson said: “We thought, with all the focus on sport this year, there might be a chance of us finding a new home.

“It would be so nice to have somewhere we could put all our kit out and call our own. Even just for the lads to have a shower afterwards would make a huge difference. They’re all used to just going home straightaway.”

He added: “To be honest, the perfect thing would be to find some land and we could get planning permission, build our own place.

“We have a lot of men of different trades at the club, so we could do it ourselves.”