On the ropes

Welcome to Auckland's premier boxing venue. Bring your coat and mind your step on that loose carpet, writes John Landrigan.
Duct tape holds threadbare carpet together, old advertising banners hang over gaping doors and windows and black sheets are taped over others to improve television views. The water-stained bleachers are weathered by leaky roofs and messy eaters, and the gym equipment is old, piecemeal and overused.
In the kitchen, ancient ovens have been salvaged from state  houses and serving benches are made from discarded shelves. And in every space, it's cold, bitterly cold.
For more than 20 years, Auckland Boxing Association's stadium has hosted regional, national and international fixtures and been the provincial home of champions Shane Cameron and David Tua.
But, on first entering the gloomy "packing shed", it feels more like a venue for a back-alley cockfight. It only just passed its building compliance after further, hurried DIY by an already-harried small group of volunteers.
Welcome to Auckland's pre-eminent boxing fixture, says an exhausted president at the equally exhausted ABA stadium.
Tui Gallagher, who volunteers 30 hours a week to helm the association, says things such as the duct tape for the carpet often come out of her family's pocket. "We go around scrounging stuff. It's tired - a lot like me, really. And if there is something needing done there is only a small handful to do it."
At one fight night The Aucklander attended, Mrs Gallagher acted as judge, MC, ran the bar with her husband and monitored her children who control the sound system between bouts; it's scratchy and the voice from the microphone incomprehensible.
Anything going awry - such as a decision thought wrong - then Mrs Gallagher is in the firing line, even though the governing body supplies only the venue.
There are 25 associated gyms scattered around Auckland. Many also struggle and promote their own fight nights at the stadium for the majority of the take.
The 5000sq m building, in Eden Terrace, is owned by the association but there's little money for its upkeep, let alone a much-needed overhaul.
What's worse is this sporting body cannot fund 25 of the region's best fighters to attend the nationals in Christchurch in September. Even so, Mrs Gallagher is determined to get a team of at least 20 fighters there "somehow".
"I do it for the kids. We'd rather they were in here than out on the streets with nothing to do. But there just is not enough money," she says.
The Government's sports funder, SPARC, assists national boxing and individual boxers who have reached an elite level.
Mrs Gallagher has refused to install pokie machines or accept alcohol sponsorship. She says other funding agents look at their asset on paper - the building - and mistakenly believe the association doesn't need money.
Meanwhile, the sad list goes on: plastic white garden chairs are buckshot around the ring,  torn bar stools and seats fill the makeshift bar, a second-hand microwave heats the savouries,  holes remain in dirty walls, torn stitching leaks stuffing from ageing punching bags, and holes appear too often in the pockets of too few.
Got any spare change?
Dream weaver
Monty Favea fought a couple of corporate bouts before turning professional. "I got into the fitness side of it. I used to like watching it. My cousin had his first fight last year and I was inspired."
The 28-year-old from Papakura, who now calls Mt Roskill home, played senior rugby and belonged to several gyms before taking up boxing. He's not impressed with the region's pre-eminent boxing facility and says others have come, taken one look, then never returned.
"This is like a factory and it's cold. You've got to come in and warm up quick. There's not much stuff here, there's not many bags and no weights. A lot of kids come here after school. They have to wait in line for equipment. This is supposed to be the home of boxing. You watch fights on TV and you expect something better. Especially in a city the size of Auckland."