POWER plays are being hammered out four times a week at a York gymnasium hosting a crack amateur boxing comeback.

Back in hard-hitting harness are the original York Amateur Boxing Club. After six years in exile, first in Leeds, then in Selby - inching ever closer to their robust roots - the club are home.

York ABC are now ensconced in the Colossus gymnasium off Layerthorpe. And they are not loitering with intent. Their aim is true.

York ABC want to re-establish the city as a major force in the land flying their distinctive maroon and white colours with pride.

If they succeed, and they are going about the task with the force of a heavyweight punch, it will signal a third golden-gloves age of boxing in the city.

Club mainstay Pete Goodrick had no doubt: "The more I see the more I am satisfied that the club will again become a force to be reckoned with. We aim to be back with a vengeance."

To the astonishment of many, York was one of the boxing strongholds in England between the two World Wars.

So formidable were the gloved ranks in those days of long shorts, brilliantined hair and Joe Louis, that an open invitation was issued to take on the best of any other city in the country.

The challenge was neither an idle threat nor an act of bravado.

Back then York ruled supreme in the ring, the amateur game bristling with power and personalities.

Fists of glory faded away until the formation of York ABC three decades ago housed in All Saints church hall in North Street. The founders of the club were trainer Bill Brown and Goodrick, Amateur Boxing Association light-welterweight champion in 1968.

Less than a year later, and on the verge of turning professional, Goodrick lost the sight of an eye in an accident.

He turned his attention to forming the new club and what a club. Those maroon and white vests were sported by no less than 29 amateur champions from schoolboy to North-east counties level.

Those distinctive colours were worn with honour too in tours across Europe. And emerging from the club was a raw youngster by the name of Henry Wharton, whose first fight mentor was the astute Brown.

But all the success could not halt a move away from All Saints six years ago when redevelopment plans were announced.

York ABC shipped bags, pads, gloves and weights across to St Patrick's ABC in Leeds, from where Wharton's first professional trainer Terry O'Neill had quit to form a new club in the city.

Recalled Goodrick: "The big problem was the travelling and also the York lads who were coming through were getting billed as coming from Leeds, which cheesed them off."

The club were on the road soon after. This time residence was taken up at Selby, where they traded punches under the Olympia ABC banner. Again the haul to Selby was restrictive, especially for the development of juniors.

When the chance came to return to York at the Colossus gym courtesy of owner Colin Coombs, a self-confessed boxing fan, it was grabbed with both hands.

"It was always the intention to get back to York at some stage. Now we want to get the old name back again," declared Goodrick.

"Since we got back interest has already gone up. At the moment the squad is small, but we believe we can be a power again and we are all convinced there is room for us in the city of York."

Currently the club have seven seniors and five juniors fully carded up for contests. But the aim is to dramatically swell the numbers in both age groups to field more York ABC representatives in shows and championships.

Training is every Tuesday and Thursday from 7pm to 9pm and then on Friday for juniors only from the same time. Another open sessions is held each Saturday from 10.30am to 1pm when York's rising professional Jamie Warters joins the sweat-streaked brigade.

Goodrick and Brown train the seniors with the juniors under the capable tuition of ex-professional Jackie Raines, who fought under the title 'the boy with the boxing brain'.

All three trainers, ABA-qualified coaches, stress an often overlooked value of the sport, notably its strict code of discipline.

Added Goodrick: "I have got a lot out of boxing, which is more about self-defence than attack.

"And anyone who takes what they have learned in this club to use it out on the street is kicked out.

"We also warn the youngsters when they first come here that is it is going to be hard work and if they don't like that they need not bother attending. If they put the work in then they will get the most out of the sport."

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