I wasn’t even supposed to be on that street.
I’d finished a job over in Harlesden earlier than expected – a relatively straightforward two-bedroom flat, no Persian rugs, no surprises, in and out in just under two hours – and I decided to take the long way back to the van. No particular reason. I wasn’t in a rush. The weather was in that just-perfect sweet spot that only London-in-late-August can provide, and I just fancied a walk.
That’s how I ended up on the side street off Neasden Lane, eating a sausage roll I probably didn’t need, when I saw the unit.
It was sandwiched between a tyre place and a cash-and-carry that I’m fairly sure has been there since the 1980s. The shutters were down. There was a faded “To Let” sign cable-tied to the grille, slightly wonky, with a phone number that had been crossed out and rewritten twice. The frontage was wide. Wider than I’d first thought. And there was a side access door.
I stood there for a long moment, sausage roll halfway to my mouth, and felt something shift in my chest.
Standing Outside, Looking In
I want to be clear that I’m not the sort of bloke who is given to flights of fancy. I’m a practical man. A realist, mostly by necessity. I know how to look at a situation, strip away the wishful thinking, and deal with what’s actually in front of me.
But standing outside that unit, I couldn’t help it. The whole thing just – appeared. Fully formed, almost. Like it had been waiting there for me to walk past.
I could see the layout before I’d even pressed my face against the gap in the shutters. High ceiling – crucial for a boxing gym, you need the height for bag work and movement. Concrete floor, which is ideal, actually – easier to work with than you’d think. The space was easily big enough for two rings side by side, with room along the walls for heavy bags, speed bags, a small weights area in the back corner. A little office or first aid room partitioned off near the entrance. Maybe a reception desk, nothing fancy – just somewhere to sign people in and put up a few photos.
I even had a name for it, which I know sounds daft because I already have a name for it. But standing there, in the actual physical space where it could exist, “Big Pete’s Boxing Club” stopped sounding like a pipe dream and started sounding like something real. Something that had an address.
A group of lads walked past – maybe thirteen, fourteen years old – one of them bouncing a football off the kerb with that particular restless energy that teenagers have when they’ve got nowhere specific to be. I watched them go. Thought about Gerry’s gym, where I’d first laced up a pair of gloves at roughly that age. Thought about what that place had given me.
Then I took a photo of the sign and went home to do some sums.
The Numbers, Which Are Not My Friends
The phone number on the sign connected me, eventually, to a property agent called Marcus who spoke with the weary patience of a man who’d shown too many optimistic people around too many commercial units. The rent on the property, he told me, was eighteen hundred pounds a month. Which sounds like a lot – because it is a lot – but for a commercial space that size, in that location, was apparently not unreasonable.
“Does much interest come in for it?” I asked.
“Some,” said Marcus, in a tone that suggested the answer was not really.
So I sat down that evening with a notepad, a mug of tea that went cold before I’d finished, and tried to work out what getting Big Pete’s Boxing Club off the ground would actually cost. I was grimly methodical about it. I even used a ruler to underline the column headings, which felt appropriate.
Rent deposit and first few months up front – call it six to eight thousand pounds minimum. Refurbishment of the space, because it was going to need work – new flooring in the ring area, electrical upgrades, lighting, painting, the lot. I rang a mate who does building work and described the unit to him. He made a noise down the phone that I can only describe as sympathetic. Fifteen to twenty thousand, he reckoned, and that was being fairly conservative.
Equipment. Two proper boxing rings – not the cheap flat-pack variety, but something you’d actually want to train in – would run to about eight to ten thousand pounds for both, installed. Heavy bags, speed bags, floor-to-ceiling balls, skipping ropes, gloves for the club to lend out, pads, wraps. Another three to five thousand at a sensible estimate. Then insurance, which for a boxing gym is not the kind of figure that makes you feel relaxed. Safety certifications, first aid training, safeguarding qualifications because you’d be working with under-eighteens. A website. Some basic marketing to get people through the door in those first few months before word of mouth has a chance to do its job.
By the time I’d filled two pages of the notepad, I had a rough total sitting at the bottom that I stared at for quite a long time.
Somewhere between seventy-five and eighty-five thousand pounds.
I turned the notepad face down and made another cup of tea.
The Maths of Mopping
Here’s the bit that’s harder to write, because it requires me to be completely straight with myself and with anyone reading this.
I am not, at this precise moment in my life, a man with eighty thousand pounds. I am a man with a fairly reliable secondhand van, a set of professional cleaning equipment, a client list I’m genuinely proud of, and enough put by that a slow week doesn’t immediately become a crisis. I am comfortable, in the modest, sensible sense of the word. I am not flush.
If I cleaned every day, took every job offered to me, raised my rates slightly, and set aside a disciplined chunk of whatever came in each week – and I mean really disciplined, Gerry-levels of no-nonsense discipline – I could probably save, on a good year, somewhere in the region of eight to ten thousand pounds. Maybe a bit more.
Which means, at that rate, without a loan or a grant or an investor or some extraordinary run of luck, I’m looking at the best part of a decade before I could realistically open the doors.
I’ll be honest. Writing that down, in black and white, is not a pleasant experience.
The dream has always felt distant in a vague, theoretical kind of way. You sort of keep it at arm’s length because up close, the logistics are a bit frightening. But there’s a difference between distant and ten years away. Ten years away is specific. Ten years away has a weight to it.
What the Unit Actually Gave Me
But here’s the thing I keep coming back to, and I want to be careful to say this right.
I don’t think seeing that unit set me back. I think it moved something forward, even if what it moved forward was complicated and uncomfortable.
Because before that sausage roll on that side street, the boxing club existed in my head as something almost mythological. A one-day, someday thing that I held onto for warmth, the way you might hold onto the memory of a really good win when the losses are stacking up. It was a feeling more than a plan.
Now it’s a plan. A daunting, expensive, logistically challenging plan that is going to require me to make some serious decisions about what I actually want and how hard I’m willing to work for it. But a plan nonetheless. It has dimensions. It has equipment lists. It has a bloke called Marcus with a phone number.
And there are avenues I haven’t explored yet. Business grants for community sports facilities. Sponsorship from local businesses. Partnerships with the council or with schools. I don’t know enough about any of those things yet, but I know they exist. I’ve started making notes.
I also know this: the lads bouncing that football off the kerb outside aren’t going to wait a decade for me to get my finances in order. The need is there now. The space is there now.
Whether I’m the one to fill it, and how, and when – that’s the question I’ve been sitting with all week.
I haven’t got an answer yet. But I’ve got a very detailed notepad and a renewed sense of purpose, which is probably where every big thing starts.