Glen Boxing Club launch their latest club product, a trendy summer shirt depicting their colours, and proudly displaying the club logo 

Last weekend the Glen Boxing Club launched their latest club product, a trendy summer shirt depicting their colours, and proudly displaying the club logo. 

This club the oldest in the country was established in February 1916, and is now flying the boxing flag in Blackpool for over one hundred and ten years. 

The club are extremely proud of their colours consisting of green yellow and black. 

The founder members in their wisdom and led by the club's president Tomas MacCurtain chose colours which they believed reflected their geographical location. 

The club was named after Gouldings Glen which was widely acclaimed as an oasis of panoramic beauty resplendent in summer time, and frequently patronised by many generations of blackpudlians, who availed of it's beautiful walks, streams, woodlands, and it was a well known and safe place where many northside youngsters learned  to swim. 

Accordingly, the club colours chosen were green and yellow as the green represented the woodlands and valley while the yellow reflected the sun. However, a few months later on the proposal of the president Tomas MacCurtain the colour black was added as a mark of respect to the men of Easter 1916, who gave their lives in the struggle for Irish freedom. 

A few months later, following a meeting which took place in the boxing club in Spring Lane which was a small terraced house leased to the club by Gouldings Glen Rovers Hurling Club was founded and they who had many more meetings in the boxing club over the next couple of years, also adopted the same colours.      

Over the next 50 years the boxing club produced many outstanding champions, including Mick Leahy and Gunner Murray, while the Glen hurlers won eight senior county titles in a row, assisted by the great Jack Lynch and Christy Ring. 

During the 1940's the boxing club was flourishing, and the hurlers who now had a club in Byrds Quay in Blackpool were aiming to build a much bigger club to cater for their very large membership. 

This was achieved in 1953. 

At the opening of their magnificent new hall, Jack Lynch reminded the hurlers that it was the boxers, who gave them shelter when they were starting out.         

During the 1940's, fifties, and 1960's, Ring became the undisputed king in hurling folklore. 

Very few people knew that three afternoons every week Ring was doing weights and upper body training behind closed doors in the boxing club in Spring Lane.  

The years rolled on until 1966. 

This was a year of great significance for many people.

On Easter Sunday, Ring captained the Glen at 46 years of age to defeat Mount Sion and win the first Munster hurling club championship. 

Cork won the All-Ireland hurling title, St Nicks won their last senior county championship, Glen Rovers travelled to the States as part of their Golden Jubilee celebrations, and Jack Lynch returned to Blackpool in a blaze of glory having been elected the first Taoiseach. 

These were great days, however, while many quite rightly celebrated, 1966 turned out to be a sad year for the boxing club. 

After 50 glorious years the lease was up and they were out. 

The heart was gone out of a great club, where up to 100 athletes a day trained at different times, sadly now the great buzz was now reduced to a stoney silence.

A couple of old heads went up to clear out their effects.

On the walls a couple of sparadic pictures, a faded picture of the sacred heart, a picture of the Glen's eight in a row county champions boxers  Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, and the Blackpool Darling Mick Leahy. 

Amongst the search party in the club that night was John Kid Cronin, and he was on a mission, and he found what he was looking for. 

This was a six foot iron bar with two cavity blocks on each side drilled onto the pole.  

This was the maestro's training pride and joy and the kid was looking after Ring's affairs and he immediately removed the bar and took it into protective custody. 

Soon after the lights were out, the door was locked, and after 50 years the Glen Boxing Club were now nomads.   

However, amidst the bleak boxing darkness of 1966 a ray of hope shone on the landscape, this was the birth of Anthony Connolly, some people say he is the boxing messiah that Blackpool was waiting for, while others say he's just 'Anthony the chairman of a great Glen Boxing Club.'