Rogan pulls no punches in Sandy Row abuse row

Former Commonwealth heavyweight champion Martin Rogan has questioned the actions of Sandy Row Amateur Boxing Club after they compiled a 57-page report outlining verbal and physical assaults sustained by their members over the course of a decade.

The incidents are understood to have taken place between 2000 and 2010, with a complaint being made to the PSNI regarding a specific incident when their boxers were subjected to sectarian abuse two years ago on North Queen Street. It is being dealt with as a hate crime.

Rogan, a former amateur from Belfast who has tried to heal old wounds by making his professional bouts cross-community events, said he was disappointed by such a move.

“I’m not for a second condoning any of what happened, it’s sad that in this day and age that it should still be happening. But of course you’ll still get incidents here and there and I’m sure if you want to delve deep enough there’s been incidents with nationalist boxers in Protestant areas.

“But it’s a lot better than it used to be. And why bring up something now that happened in 2000? Why not bring these incidents up at the time and have them dealt with so things might get better? Why wait all these years so that there’s a big file full of stuff, a lot of it from a long time ago? You have to remember that despite incidents here and there, Belfast has come a long way since 2000.”

The secretary of the Sandy Row Club, Ian McSorley, noted the problems began in 2000 when club members were stoned leaving the County Antrim Championships in Twinbrook, while a decade on a Chinese boxer, who was 15, had a bottle thrown at him and was called an ‘Orange chink’.

“That’s terrible and there’s no place for it, and again I’m not condoning it,” continued Rogan. “But this was done by an idiot or two in the crowd by the sounds of it. The club in question should be made aware of that straight away and deal with those people and we should move on, because you’ll always get idiots everywhere, in any sport.

“I’ve had my problems too. I fought a guy in the Park Avenue Hotel in 2007 and got booed and worse coming into the ring even though I was the local. Afterwards two guys from Dublin got badly beaten outside. And when I left that night there was a gang calling me a Fenian bastard and I just put out my hand and shook theirs and moved on. You have to.”

The Sandy Row Club have in their recommendations called for the wearing of neutral colours in the future and for events to be held at neutral venues but again this has left Rogan bemused.

“How can we talk about moving forward if you are going to let a few idiots cause all these changes? That’s not right. In boxing, you wear red and blue, and if a kid wants to wear whatever colour shorts he wants, what’s the big deal?

“I thought we had moved on and had a freedom of choice these days. Guys from both sides represent Ulster and have a red hand on their vest and they got on with it. But if Sandy Row has this problem, I’d like to ask them one question. Why aren’t they affiliated with the IABA?

“That’s an interesting one. They are calling for all these neutral steps to be taken but boxing is a 32-county sport in Ireland with one governing body yet they aren’t affiliated with it.

“But Sandy Row won’t box for Ireland, they won’t join the governing body, yet here they are talking about problems that have happened.

“What happened is sad to hear because boxing has always been a sport that’s united people here but I do think there were better ways of dealing with this.”