Adam Haniver [00:00:28]:
I'm delighted to invite in Dan O'Sullivan, AKA Dagger Dan from Dagenham ABC and from many other places to the podcast. Dan, how you doing, mate?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:00:46]:
Very good, thanks, Adam. Really good. Looking forward to a nice break. This is me done for the year. I've got two weeks off now. Lovely jubbly.

Adam Haniver [00:00:54]:
Nice. Get those hands in the Quality Streets and Roses sharpish, I'd say. Right, here we go. You ready for this? I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna bring you in. Here we go. So Dagger Dan Judge Coach, Official, MC, Club Support officer, Club Secretary Chairman, Club Welfare Officer, Regional welfare Officer, Safeguard lead Safeguard course deliverer, London DBS checker. He's been previously elected to the ABAE Council by the old London aba, sat on the committee of the Northeast Division's London ABA, was the voice of a tiny little event called the London 2012 Olympic Games. And a partridge and a pear tree. Have I missed anything, mate?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:01:33]:
I'm a father to two sons as well. One of those, One of those was a boxer for a little while, but he said he's not doing it no more.

Adam Haniver [00:01:41]:
Was he a dagger as well?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:01:42]:
Yeah, he was a dagger, yeah. He had about 15 bouts. Yeah.

Adam Haniver [00:01:46]:
Nice, nice. Okay, so, yeah, quite a repertoire there. So first question then. How long have you been in boxing and how the hell do you do it?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:01:56]:
Yes, long, long time. I boxed for Dagenham as a kid from the age of, I joined the club at about 9, 8 or 9 with my brothers Sean and Brendan. The original Dagenham Boxing Club was based at a place called The Boat House in Dagenham. So we all had quite a few bouts. My brother Sean was probably the best out of three of us. And then we get that age where you meet ladies. Sean stopped boxing. Brendan Stopped boxing. I carried on until I was about 21. I joined the Met Police and I started boxing for them and had a very, very, very good run with them. 21 wins in a row with, with the Met Police boxing tour, the British Police boxing team. And then while I was boxing for the police, good friend of mine was running the club at the time, Mark Masso. You might have heard of Mark, he's very involved in boxing still. He's involved at a pro level now. He was running the club and he asked for a bit of help. So I went down give him a bit of help. Done the level one coaching course. This was in 91 and then done my level two pretty much straight away about two years after that, 93 I think 94. And then Mark decided he was going in the army. So just before he went in the army said, I'm handing everything over to you. This was at the old Dagenham Boxing club. And then about a month after Mark left, we got an eviction notice from the local authority evicting us from the gym. So then we had a two year battle with a council and we, well, I nearly lost my job actually. I was a copper at the time, police officer. And they, they threatened to sack me for taking the council to court. But in the end the council accepted, out of court, they accepted that they had illegally evicted us and, and they moved us to the gym we're at now. And this was nearly 30 years ago, just, just under 30 years ago. 

So we've been in the gym we're at now for just, just under 30 years. Coming up next year will be our 30th year and yeah, it's all happened since then really. That's how I got involved. So initially my brother Sean also got involved from day one and a very good friend of mine, a very decorated England Boxing official called Keith Mills, he got on board from the very start. Both my parents got involved. My dad is currently our president of the Dagenham Boxing Club. Mum's one of two treasurers. So yeah, it's a family affair. My brother Brendan then got involved for a while as well. He become a level one and level two coach, but he doesn't coach anymore. He was in the fire brigade. And yeah, so me and Sean have sort of been doing that since then. We've had lots and lots of coaches come and go over the years. Some great coaches over the years have been with us and left us and it's sort of, I've seen that constant sort of flow of coaches. There's been a few like say that sort of stuck with us from day one. Keith Mills in particular, Peter Weeks, it's another one that's been with us pretty much from day one. Yeah, we've got a really good group of coaches. We've got. Sounds like loads. We've got 25 coaches at the moment at Dagenham, which sounds really good.

Adam Haniver [00:04:51]:
25, okay.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:04:52]:
Yeah, I know, yeah, it sounds really good. But we've got five leaving because we've got one of our head coach at the moment, he's just about to open his own club in Thurrock. I knew that was happening. There's been no fallout whatsoever. It's all very much been arranged and we're all cool with it. And so he's going off and a few of our coaches going with him because they've obviously built a rapport and that means, as always, quite a few boxers go. So yeah, it's changed, but I've seen it over the years. It's happened loads of times when you get a big coach or a big boxer leave, lots of boxers go. But yes. So I started off coaching, then I've done me judging course, me grade C judging course with Jason Ball and a few other people back in the day had done a grade B judging course, level one, level two coach, grade A, grade B judge. And that's when you started having to put together, you know, your club committee constitution, all that, you know, have it all running properly, people getting elected and then just found yourself falling into more and more positions. 

And my brother Brendan was the original MC from my family. He used to MC our shows when we first started having shows, but then he couldn't do a show one night and I ended up doing it and it went from there really. I just started. A lot of people started asking me to do their shows and I got involved. Next thing you know, I've been asked to do the National Schools Finals. That was at Dagenham, at Gorsbrook Leisure centre. And it went from there. And I've now done six National Schools Finals, five NAC finals. I think I've done six Junior Finals. I've done the Youths, I've done the nacyps and then I've done a few Internationals World Series boxing and then obviously I knew about the London 2012 Olympics coming out. Now I know you was going to get onto this, Adam, possibly, but I'll let, I'll let you. I'll let you introduce that one.

Adam Haniver [00:06:42]:
Well, okay, yeah, not a nice little change over to that there. Right, so a lot of people know you as the MC and as you've just said there's incredible amount of sort of feathers in your cap, strings to your bow. But let's talk about the MC part first. But I do want to go into the coaching side as well a little bit later. So you've MC'd incredible amount of of bouts you've done Harringey, you've done all England Boxing Championships. I to throw at you of course, the London 2020 12. Let's start, let's start there. Did that start with a phone call?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:07:18]:
He actually started with a promise. You might know a very, very decorated judge referee called Mick Bassey from the Bassey family. And he, he was at the time, he'd become a very senior refereeing judge with England Boxing or the Amateur Boxing association as it was back then. And him and me, I was constantly on the circuit in the championships, introducing the boxes on the mic and he kept saying to me in the ring one day when the Olympic comes, we're going to do it together. And that opportunity come up. Obviously they put in the bid for the Olympics and we back the bid and my borough got very involved in it where we was one of the six sort of Olympic boroughs. And yeah, Mick sort of pretty much said we are gonna do the Olympics together. And that was about five years before the Olympics. So then when it come up and they started having the test events and the auditions for people's positions, I put in for it as you do and I went up to the Excel had an audition and there was quite a lot of us done the audition, I don't know exactly how many but there was quite a lot of people apply for it. And I got through the auditions and they, it was down to the last six of us and then six of us done a sort of live test event and they wanted to pick two English speaking MCs to do the Olympics. 

And yeah, it went really, really well. But I still didn't think I was going to get it. Not in my wildest dreams that I think I was going to get it. But I did, I got it. Me and my very good friend Bob Smith were picked to do the MCing as the English speaking MCs. There was also a French speaking MC and it was a bit of a dream. But once they said to me, you've got the job, we want you to do it, I'll then have to approach my boss because I was a full time police officer. So I sent him an email and said, look Boss, I've applied for this position. Can I take sort of six to eight weeks unpaid leave to do the Olympics? And he just sent back a one line response, "let's get ready to rumble" and let me do it. And he let me do it whilst on full pay as a copper. So it sounds a bit naughty, but he basically sort of said that was a kind of almost a sort of congratulations on what you do in the community. And that's how I've always looked at Adam, to be honest with you. I think it was a bit of a thank you for what you do in the community. And he's in the local. I really invest myself in the local community, liaise and meet regularly with local councillors, a local MP, a local police chiefs and that. So I'm constantly sort of trying to sort of make the place better. 

And obviously my angle on it is reducing crime and that sort of thing by getting kids involved in boxing. But yeah, the Olympics was a dream come true. I loved it, every minute of it. And the icing on the cake, I thought I was doing it for nothing. I didn't realize it was a paid position until they sent me my contract and there was a little sort of, I went through it, it's like a 30 page document. Signed it, sent it back, didn't even know at that point, just didn't even read it properly. But then Bob Smith, the other MC, he rang me and said, do you realize we're getting paid for this? So it was. But actually one thing it did do, it ballsed up my tax brackets, it took me above the earner bracket and so I ended up no better off really. But it was brilliant. Best thing, I could not have been happy out. It was a dream come true. Really, really, really into every minute of it. It was so fascinating and luckily I didn't make a mistake. That was what I was really, really worried about. I was worried about live on the air making a mistake. It was my worst fear.

Adam Haniver [00:10:47]:
A stutter or saying the wrong name.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:10:50]:
Getting something wrong. Yeah, maybe announcing the wrong winner, getting it wrong. Because in the Olympics, although it was computer scoring, it was bits of paper. They was one guy who's called, we called him the Slug. He used to walk around the ring, it's all the scores and bring them over to us and then if it went to count back, he had to go back again with them. It was a nightmare, the system. I thought it was good. The scoring was good for London 2012.

Adam Haniver [00:11:11]:
Did you get to. Because you're working and it's. There's no bigger stage. The world's looking at you. There's hundreds of millions people looking at you at one point just to see if you're going to say red or blue. Did you manage to kind of just sort of sit back and go absorb it and go, I'm here enjoying it and I'm actually watching the boxing or was it business?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:11:33]:
Yeah, I had my business head on because we had earphones on and it was very focused. But I think as it went on, as we got to the sort of quarter-final, semi, final stages, I sort of felt like. It felt like home, really, because I was there so, so much, so long hours there. And yeah, I just. I just felt like I could. I did absorb it. And what was really nice, there were a lot of people around us, you know, in the crowd. My parents come, my boys came, some of the club personnel. And it was just nice to sort of see them be there and be part of it. It was unreal. I mean, I'll never forget Katie Taylor's final. I've never heard noise like it. It's unbelievable. I think that got the highest decibels for the boxing at London 2012. You'd think it would have been an Anthony Joshua, but I'm pretty sure it.

Adam Haniver [00:12:19]:
Was Katie Taylor, Taylor Jonas, I think, wasn't it? Not the final, but the. I was there, I'd managed to get tickets for Taylor Jonas and I couldn't believe it. Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I remember as well, looking around the arena, I do this weird thing where when I'm at a big event and something I want to kind of almost bookmark in my head, I try and do this thing where I stop for a second, I look around and I try and do this like, photograph in my head of remember this, remember this, remember this. And I looked around and I just kept saying to myself, remember this, remember this, remember this. And then this, this roar went up. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe. I think we were. We were outdone by the Irish in terms of the roar. But it was, it was incredible. And look how both of those have gone on to now, apart so. Apart from that bout, because that was like the, that was like the the wow moment, wasn't it? What other bouts do you remember from those Olympics as a bit of a bookmark for you?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:13:16]:
Obviously, the big one was obviously AJ because for two years before AJ got to the Olympics, obviously we knew that he got the silver medal in the World Championships and we knew he was gonna. I actually predicted he was going to get there and win the gold medal. I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but I always said, AJ can win the gold medal here. He's got it in him. And I did think he was a little bit. There was a bit of fortune. But listen, you take your fortune when you get it, didn't you? I was so pleased he won that Olympics. It was brilliant. I was an ex-Finchley boxer, so I trained at Finchley for five years when I boxed for the police. And obviously that's where AJ was when he won the Olympics. So that was quite special as well. Very special. Having introduced AJ at the Harringey Box cup previously as well, and sort of watched him develop. And I also was one of very few people that knew the backstory with AJ and the problems he had out of boxing that could quite easily have prevented him from being in the Olympics, let alone winning the Olympics. So it was a really sweet story to see him get his hand lifted. And when he did, you had the likes. I'll never forget that. They all walked over to the room. You had Vladimir Klitchko, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield. They're all standing right next to me and I'm like, what? I didn't get hardly any photos. I didn't get hardly any photos. It was usually I missed the selfie, but we weren't allowed to have camera phones while we were MCing, so I didn't get hardly any photos.

Adam Haniver [00:14:39]:
Yeah, a few opportunities missed there. Yeah, Absolutely incredible. So you mentioned there Harringey as well. So Harringey has become arguably, don't know about these ones internationally, but arguably the best box cup competition in. In the world. You know, they say it's the biggest in Europe, don't they? I think it's got the biggest reputation now and every amateur boxing club's got it in their calendar for June. So you're. You obviously MC that, but you're a massive part of that. Why is the Harringey box cup such a phenomenon?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:15:08]:
I think partly because it was one of the first, if not the first, box cup in this country in terms of, you know, the number of rings it has. And you can't mention Harringey Box Cup without the Alexandra Palace. Ali Pally is such a place. It's such a beautiful part of London. It's probably one of the most beautiful venues, if not the most beautiful venue in boxing. It really is. And I love the place. There's a connection there again, for me, because when I joined the Met Police, the Met Police Boxing Club was based at a club called Alexandra Palace, which was in Ali Pally. So I spent two years training at Ali Pali. And it's gone full circle because last year, although Alexandra Palace Boxing Club closed down in, I think 1995 or 1996, they reopened it again last year. So there's a new Ali Pally Boxing Club.

Adam Haniver [00:15:56]:
Okay.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:15:57]:
Yeah, it's not called Ali Pally Boxing Club. It's called Elite Genius Boxing Club or something like that now. But it's. It's in Ali Pally in the same place where I used to train as well. So my coach at the time there was at Jerry Wilmot. He's a coach. He's an ex police officer, and he was one of the founders of the Harringey Box Cup. Him, Ken Marsh, obviously, Brian John and Terry Kelly. They're the four founders of the Harringey Box Cup. And a lot of people think I'm one of the founders. I'm not. I just like you say, I'm just the MC, but they give me. They all give me a hell of a lot. I feel honoured, to be honest, to be part of it. I'll get involved, setting up, doing accreditation, trying to help where I can. And then I get my suit on and get the mic out and I do obviously have my music on as well, and then I MC it. But the MC and of the Iron Gate is the most tiring of all the MC and I do. I wouldn't miss it.

Adam Haniver [00:16:46]:
I actually see you running. I actually see you running between rings as opposed to strolling, literally have to run. But your fitness is bang on now, isn't it?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:16:54]:
Every year I say I've got to count my steps and I never do. But you know what does Me, Adam? with the Harringey Box Cup. And I've got to tell you this. People still say to me, how did you see that bout? I'm like, I'm doing five rings here. How can I watch that bout? Or they'll stop me and say, what, what round number is that in ring C? Or what round? And I'm like, I don't know. I. I barely know where I am, let alone what ring that is.

Adam Haniver [00:17:18]:
So you're looking down a sheet of paper and then looking up at a ring, running to the ring, looking back down at the sheet of paper, running up to looking up another ring. Yeah. Is it still five rings?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:17:27]:
Yeah, well, yeah. Brian John is talking about a six ring this year and I'd love to do six rings. Really would love to do it. I think it's doable. A lot of people say to me, why don't you just have another MC or three MCs. But you can only ever have one MC talking at any one time. And yeah, it just don't work with two MCs. And it's not me trying to sort of claim it. We have tried it and it just doesn't work.

Adam Haniver [00:17:48]:
So yeah, you'd be talking over each other, wouldn't you? Start in. Do you know what? I think there's an opportunity for you to be sponsored by Strava.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:17:55]:
Yeah, Steps. Yeah, Serious mileage goes in. But you know what, I could tell you as well, I've been wearing the same Italian leather shoes from day one and I will not get rid of those shoes until the Harringey Box Cup finishes. Because at some point it's not going to happen. It's happening again next year and there's plans for it to happen for as long as possible. But everything comes to an end one day and enough, you know, and it's usually down to the personnel, Jerry and Jerry Wilmer and Ken Marsh, who done a lot of the logistics for the box cup and raising the money for the box cup. There's a huge cost, I know it's sort of 40, round about £45,000 each year just to hire the venue that's without the rings, that's without all the food and everything for the officials and medals and all the other stuff. 

But Jerry and Ken have now retired from the police so I'm not sure how much longer they'll be involved in it. But they were, they're both involved last year and I know they're both planning to be involved next year. Brian and John, I think they'd do it forever and they do such a good job and you can't mention the emigrate Box cup without mentioning JabLink. They do a fantastic job. They make it flow. I remember the first few years before we used Jablink to do the draw and the entries and Brian, John used to have to write all that and I kid you not, it was smoke coming out of his ears and everyone was asking, what bout am I on? What corner am I in?

Adam Haniver [00:19:19]:
For those who are not sure, Dan, what is Jablink? For those who are not sure.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:19:23]:
The software which we use or it's the company we use who provide the software that basically all the boxers book in, they weigh in. It's all done digitally on these digital lanyards that they use at the Harringey Box Cup and everything's on their lanyard. And so the draw the rings, everything's done on this software and you press a button and it prints everything out. It does it all magically for you and it saves a hell of a lot of work. Paul Kelly and Keen Keenan run it. They're fantastic. And that has made a big difference. I mean, if you ask Brian, Johnny probably think, let's tell you, that's the best thing that ever happened to Harringey Box Cup because he used to do it manually himself and that was real hard work, used to take ages.

Adam Haniver [00:20:06]:
Like a bingo card in the end. Then he just crossing everything out and back in. 

Dan O'Sullivan [00:20:09]:
Yeah it's got bigger and better.

Adam Haniver [00:20:13]:
It'S almost like how can it get bigger and better? You know, it's almost like how can it.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:20:17]:
Six rings.

Adam Haniver [00:20:17]:
That's what, six rings, seven rings. Lord of the Rings. It's got me so many rings. Yeah,good luck with that. Right, let's talk about Dagger Dan the coach then. Because like I say, a lot of people, the first thing they will associate you with, rightly or wrongly, would be the MC. But there's masses that go behind the scene in terms of your involvement with Dagenham, in terms of you as a coach. So tell us about you as a coach. What your sort of day to day involvement in the club?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:20:46]:
So I'm a level three coach and not many people know that. Most people probably think I'm a sort of level one skivvy. But I do coach exclusively with beginners, absolute beginners. At Dagenham we've got a group called The Winkles aged between 8 and 11. That's our foundation group within, we've got junior development groups. They're all aged 11, 18, and they're the only ones I coach at the moment. Although over the years I've coached, you know, boxers the championship level through the championships. I rarely go in the corner at all. Even rarer that you see me in the corner in a championship.  In the last few years, I've actually handed up in the corner. Magical spit bucket man for a couple of boxers. And we got a couple of champions out there. I still coach two or three nights a week. I'm at the gym at the moment, every Tuesday and Friday night I also try and work from the gym a couple of days a week to sort of get face to face meetings done. 

But yeah, coaching wise I sort of grill them. You know, get the basics right, the footwork, the stance, get moving around, distance right on the bags, pads. Once they're sparring, we get them carded obviously for sparring and once they've had two or three bouts in the group that I'm in, we move them on to our, at the moment it's called a carded group. It's really a championship group. If we see any kids that have got any potential to go in a championship, we move them on to another group. But as I say, there are a few changes going on at the moment in terms of personnel moving around, which get all the time. But yeah, I generally only coach beginners wise. I was coached once a good few years ago by a guy called Phil Pearson at the Trojan Boxing Club, which is where the Police Boxing club moved to after, after Alexandra palace and then it moved to Finchley. He's the most relaxed coach I've read in the corner and I always sort of try and sort of nick a bit of something off every coach and he's one the one thing I nicked off him, he was one of those coaches that if you were winning the bet comfortably, he wouldn't even give you a drink of water. Carry on doing what you're doing. That's it. There was no change. No, try this, no try that. Just keep doing what you're doing. So learned a lot of him, obviously my old coaches, when I boxed at Dagenham as a kid myself with my brothers, a lot of what I learned from them I still use, especially some of the footwork drills we do at the gym. And then some of the senior coaches I work around, you know, we have quite a lot of squads at my gym, whether it be women's squads, this girl can box, regional squads, I've even had national squads there. And you know, I've picked up so much off some of the great coaches and very good coach Mick McGuire, Q Shillingford, he runs the This girl can box for Terry Kelly at the gym. He comes down. I'm always watching all the other sort of experienced coaches and picking up little bits and bobs and I just don't think you ever stop learning as a coach. I feel like I also learn off some of the new coaches. They'll go on sort of level ones, level twos come back with ideas and say we should do this, we should try that. And I'm always cool for that. I like to try new stuff.

Adam Haniver [00:23:43]:
Hi all. Just a quick timeout from today's episode to let you all know that our next course has just landed on the website. It's called Habits of Effective Coaching. The course contains five modules which is understanding boxing knowledge, the ologies and how to effectively coach it. How to form connection with your boxers, how to be an adaptable coach, how to delegate responsibility in your coaching team and finally, how to be a consistent and accountable coach. 

The course not only provides a theory behind these essential skills and habits, but discusses practical tools and how you can implement them in your day to day boxing coaching. Then, as per our current and forthcoming courses, you can take our quiz to check your understanding of all of the content and its material. Join our ever growing community of members today at www.theboxinggathering.com. Now back to the show. 

Absolutely. I mean there's and there's millions of role models, especially around London of coaches that you can learn from all the time. Here's a question for you. How would your boxers that you work with and coach, how would they describe you as a coach? Let's flip it there.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:24:48]:
I feel like I'm quite liked by boxers but I'd probably say I'm a bit of a soft touch coach. I mean Jason Ball for example, he's a coach at gym and he says to me you're too soft with him, your miles too soft with him. He says you molly coddle them, you wrap around them. Yeah, I'm a bit of a softy like that and probably so's my brother Sean to a degree. But I just feel like you need to get the trust of the kids in particular to build that rapport and they need to trust in you. As long as they trust in you, they'll believe in themselves. And it all happens. We had it recently. Jaden Slade, I've got to mention kid he started with us when he was five. He's now 15. Coming up 16, might be 16 already and he's just won his second national title. And me and my brother Sean, done his corner and that was really nice. That was probably one of the best moments in boxing for me. 

I worked with Jaden as a beginner for nearly five years until he got to the point where he was competing and his competition didn't start well. He had a nosebleed problem and nervous problem. But we could always see once he got sort of his head around it and got around the corner. We could always see him winning titles and he's now a club junior captain and that's for me what makes it all worthwhile. He's one of the big success stories for me. 

Obviously we've had the success, success as you mentioned earlier, Billy Adams, he started what we called the takeover, winning the senior NACs and then on the same day Darren Bailey won the national development title as well in London at the University of East London. And that was a big starting point for us. Then Lewis Passfield, great coach, moved over to us from Chapel St. Mary and he's been a big part of our success over the last three years. Last season we won 10 national titles which is our record, including four schools titles. We nearly won our first female schools title as well. But that's going to happen next year. Yes, it's going really well at the moment but we've never really been, I wouldn't describe Dagenham Boxing Club as a success driven club. I'd rather sort of put us as more of a sort of inclusive community club that gives everyone the maximum opportunities we can.

Adam Haniver [00:26:54]:
Doesn't that, isn't that the reason for the success in the ring as well though? It's kind of linked?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:26:58]:
I think so. But I also definitely think part of the personnel. It's no coincidence that you know, when Lewis Passfield and Jason Ball joined us we started having success. Jason Ball run West Ham Boxing Club for 10 years or whatever. It was very, very successfully. One of the biggest, most successful clubs in the country. And he's added that sort of injection of sort of wanting success as has Lewis as well. Lewis is, is quite obsessed with success. He don't like losing whereas I'm kind of like I don't like losing but I don't get me knickers in a twist if we don't win a title one year. Yeah, I don't get my knickers in a twist if we don't win a box cup. Yeah, like I say, the last few years have been fantastic. Really, really manic. But as you know, you know you're very heavily involved in a successful club. When you have success it costs a lot more. That success is a big cost to the club in terms of paying for coaches to travel around getting all the championships and all the box cups and that's one thing I've noticed. I've forever applying for funding left, right and center trying to get things covered because most of the kids we've got, or some of the kids we've got, gym can't even afford to pay the fees, let alone travel around the box cups and championships. So we try and make it as, as easy for them as we can. I try not to. I feel like at points there can be, we create kind of two tier boxing club. One half of the boxers who can afford to do anything, go anywhere, they get to do everything. And in the boxes that can't afford it, can't. And I feel like I don't want to leave them out. I want to, want to make sure all of them have got the same opportunities regardless of financial barriers.

Adam Haniver [00:28:32]:
So if they can pay, great. If they can't pay.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:28:37]:
We'll try and raise it or we'll try and pay for it. I mean I'm constantly applying for additional funding to make sure kids, kids that can't afford to come to the gym, they will make sure we get it covered. A bit like premium cover that they get in schools for school, free school dinners and that sort of stuff. And there is funding out there but it's the, it's the aggravation of having to keep applying for it and then obviously do the monitoring and evaluation and keep it going. And it's constant, it is real constant. As you know, mate, it's more like a full time job running that gym.

Adam Haniver [00:29:05]:
Yeah, absolutely. But, but you do obviously have the blend of you being a club support officer for England Boxing as well. So that expertise that you have there, you can apply to your club anyway. So that does help. We'll talk about that, that part in a second. What is the area like around there, around Dagenham? Is it a bit of a mix, a bit affluent in some areas and a little bit as kids come in that don't have a penny to sort of rub together.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:29:28]:
So I grew up in Dagenham as a kid. I moved out of Dagenham 15 years ago or 12 or 13 years ago. I moved to Rayleigh in Essex which is where I live now. But I'll always consider myself a Dagenham boy, even though I live in Rayleigh and I help some of the clubs around Rayleigh. The area of Dagenham is quite deprived, you will know of the index of multiple deprivation, that's the IMD which basically all funding applications, you have to sort of all the different indicators of deprivation, whether it be school, employment, health care, all the different things make a difference. And you know, you can tell my club's based within a little shopping precinct and a very small shopping center. And there's a hell of a lot of shops boarded up, closed. There's quite a lot of homelessness, I would say there's quite a lot of crime around the gym. Quite close to the gym, especially sort of shoplifting and pickpocketing and thieving. There's quite a lot of drug use around the gym. But you can see it because I can look out the gym when that I can watch it. So it isn't perfect, but it has improved a little bit over the last few years because there's a new police team that cover the area. The security in the shopping center has improved. Yeah. So it's up and down. But I love Dagenham. 

I'll always, I'll always be a Dagenham boy. I'll always consider myself a Dagenham boy. But there's a lot of work. I know a lot of counsellors and the local MP there, lady called Margaret Mullane, I've got her on speed though, on my phone. She's constantly on the phone to me, giving me help and support around what I can do and how they can help me and how we can get things done. So I can't really grumble. The club exists largely because of the need for it. And there is a need for it if there wasn't a demand for it. I mean, there's five boxing clubs in the borough of London Borough, Barton and Dagenham and I've got Barking Boxing Club just a mile up the road. I've got a new city boxing club a couple of miles up the road. TKO Boxing Club. TK Barking, Sorry, boxing club. So there's lots of boxing clubs all around. There's a new youth zone that's just opened and that's got a boxing facility in it. And we do quite a bit of outreach. We do a little bit of partnership work with them. But yeah, I think we've constantly got a waiting list at Dagenham Boxing Club, when I say 2 to 300 kids in any one time waiting to join the club. So we're constantly looking at ways we can introduce new, even new short term programs to sort of filter out the ones that want to go on to compete.
 
But as you know, Adam, quite a lot of funding out there now isn't actually for boxing per se. It's for recreational boxing or inclusivity boxing. And that's where a lot of clubs don't want to do it because most coaches, they want to coach champions. They want to coach boxers. They don't want to coach people that are disabled or sensory impaired or Parkinson's or some other neurodiverse condition. And I don't think that's going to change much because I generally think the people that want to compete can afford to compete anyway. We do occasionally get kids in that, you can see they got that potential, that talent, but they just haven't got the money that would allow them to go to box cups abroad or go to places. So we sort of do try and fill that. We make sure that everyone can afford to do everything that becomes available. Every opportunity they get, we'll make sure they can do it. That's what we try and do. Like I say, that's where I've always focused on the. I remember when Lewis Passfield come to us, he said, Dagenham Box is such a big club, huge membership, lots of really good boxers over the years, but it's a bit of a sleeping giant. And he was spot on with that. We were sort of not sleeping, but we were just sort of ticking along, quite happy to just sort of have the occasional champion. And then we went from that to having 10 champions in one season.

Adam Haniver [00:33:13]:
Was just so sleeping giant in terms of performance and wins.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:33:17]:
Yeah.

Adam Haniver [00:33:17]:
Championships and that kind of thing.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:33:19]:
Yeah and the fact that the club has got a huge membership. We have got well over 200 members coming at the gym each week. We're open five weekday evenings. We open, we open Sundays. We run seven groups and like I said, we've got 25 coaches. It sounds like a lot of coaches, but when you spread them across seven groups, it's not so much depending on the coach commitment. And that's the hardest thing. I think you'd probably be best to speak about this, but I find the hardest thing to get, once you get coaches, is a regular commitment. If someone says to me, a coach says to me, I'll coach two nights a week for this long, that's perfect. But what I tend to get is coaches say, right, I'll be a coach and I'll just get there whenever I can. Well, you can't run a gym with coaches that only get there whenever they can. You need to know when they're going to be there. And those boxers need that consistency, you know, that same coach there every time. That's what I still, even after 30 years, I still get anxious about virtually every session making sure we've got enough coach cover. Because as you Know, they're all volunteers. None of them get paid. They do it at the goodness of their heart. Most of them are ex-boxers and they just love the sport. Then when you throw into that box cup, lots of box cups, we've been averaging 12 box cups a year, Championships where we've been doing really well. So we were at every stage of every championship. And then that's without just the, you know, the usual shows, club shows, which I think are a bit of a dying breed at the moment. I feel like club shows are way on the back burner now in terms of.

Adam Haniver [00:34:45]:
Because of the box cups and the other championships and all that.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:34:49]:
But I think it's more the box cups. I feel like a lot of the kids and the parents just want to see their kid get a gold medal. And quite often you go to a box cup, as you know, and you only end up boxing once and you get a gold medal for winning once. You should be boxing three times on, like, quarterfinal, semi, final, final for most box cups. But I feel like a lot of box cups now, you enter, you might only get one other entry at your weight, and you're a straight final. So it's more like a matched bout. But you get a gold medal and it looks better on, I suppose your social media saying you've got six gold medals and you won six bouts.

Adam Haniver [00:35:21]:
Yeah, I know what you mean. I know what I mean. People want to see something tangible for their efforts straight away, as opposed to, you know, just enjoying the sport and developing and getting better and you prove to other people that they've just won something. So, yeah, I do see as a bit of an issue. So that makes sense. Here's a question for you. So you mentioned there's five clubs in your borough. Yeah, at the moment. All five clubs close down tomorrow. What does that do to the community?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:35:44]:
Well, when I say closed down, we closed down today.

Adam Haniver [00:35:49]:
Never. Never to open again.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:35:50]:
All right,  You're gonna have kids running around the street running ragged. I mean, Evan Mitchell used to box for us. He boxed for Dagenham. He box for West West Ham. Love the Geezer. He still comes in the gym every now and then, does a bit. He's just put out a sort of video of himself. Not sure if you've seen it on social media, talking about growing up and how boxing saved him. And I only watched it yesterday and that sort of reinforced how I feel about the community. I feel like the boxing club is a safety net for a lot of kids. And I think a lot of the parents get anxious about it, you know, worried about what's going to happen with a boxing club if it was to close, if things don't work out. And I think they also get. The kids perhaps don't win enough bouts and they're going to pack it in. They don't want to do it. A couple of losses and they turn it in. 

But I see the value as an ex-copper especially, I'm a true believer that boxing saves lives, it transforms lives and, you know, inspires lives. People like Billy Adams, he's inspired so many people at that club. Billy sadly lost his mum when he was a young man, young boy was only had 10 or 11, and boxing was his drive. He'd done everything in memory of his mum in amateur boxing. And when he won that elite title, you know, there's a photo in that gym of him pointing up to his mum. It's a savior as well. I mean, his dad, obviously was his coach alongside my brother Sean. But Billy, he was a club captain, undefeated pro now. And I'm so proud of that boy. If you could ever sort of mould a club captain, he's what you want every time. He's brilliant. 

We've got another GB member at the moment in Isaac Oko as our club captain. He's doing really, really well and hopefully, if LA happens, LA 2028, he can get to LA 2028. Let's see. But I do think the boxing club gives them a sense of security, gives them an opportunity to achieve. It tackles all the usual social issues around obesity, you know, crime, education. I mean, we work with local schools. I'm constantly writing to the schools of our boxers to let them know how they're doing, especially if they do well in a championship. I sometimes have to write to the school to ask for permission and have time off to compete in Box Cups and to box for England. And, you know, I'm quite proud to sort of tell the schools, really, how well the boys and girls are doing. And that's something that's really on the up at the moment at Dagenham. That's what you're going to see over the next year or two, a massive influx of female boxers. Because that's, that's one focus we're on at the moment.

Adam Haniver [00:38:28]:
What's the state of play for amateur boxing in this country today in your opinion because you, you see it from so many different angles. You see it from a CSO angle, you see it from an official, coach, a club chairman. What's the state of play?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:38:40]:
I think the best word to use is uncertain. Because the Olympics is the drive behind everything, unfortunately. It's connected in terms of the funding that the sport attracts to continue to do what we're doing and develop what we're doing. Everyone England boxing is pushing for us to get that Olympics to make sure it happens. But if the Olympics aren't happening, and we know it's not happening, quite a few boxers, amateur boxers, elite boxers will probably go pro. We'll lose them. 

But I think the biggest impact will be the funding side of it for the sport, the talent pathway. I think that may well collapse. Not collapse, but certainly be scaled down. I know that there are at the moment alternative plans being made around sort of funding. It's kind of like Plan B. I do feel like in terms of clubs, I mean, we had this big split happened. What was that? Seven, eight years ago? Back up to above where we were then in terms of clubs, numbers of clubs and we've got still got a lot of clubs coming back in. As, as a club support officer, I'm in London. I'm seeing a hell of a lot of asking to reaching out to return to England boxing from the Alliance. I never fell out with anyone from the alliance. As far as I'm concerned, you know, they chose to go to a different organization. If they want to come back, they're welcome back and I think it will be beneficial if we can all get back together because it makes the more of us there are, the stronger it will make us. So yeah, I've been working on that over the last, in fact, over the last few months, quite a few clubs from the alliance have come back to us. So that's a good development. I think there's quite a lot of work around from England Boxing around making the sport a lot, lot safer. Especially with the Bilby inquest having been released. I don't know if you read it. It's so tragic and quite, quite obviously avoidable. Quite a lot of things in it could have been avoided and there's a lot of lessons to be learned from it and I think that's why you're seeing a lot of things changing around how we do things and why clubs need to be seen and inspected and to make sure they're doing things, you know, the way that they're meant to be doing things. It is a very good.

Adam Haniver [00:40:49]:
You do your club checks in London as well around as part of your role?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:40:51]:
Yeah, yeah. And it is difficult though. I mean I've got 110 clubs in London. Yes, I live, I live out in Essex but I'm in London most of the time at my gym and I just try and get around to as many gyms I can. Luckily I see a lot of the personnel from the gyms on the circuit where I'm on the mic MCing shows and championships. So I do quite a bit of work. I always take the computer with me. I'll always help someone if they've got a problem with the locker. I've always been a bit of a people pleaser. I'll always try and help people and I thought it was a natural progression when I become club support officer I felt like I'd quite a lot of experience to share and that's what I've done. Like a lot of clubs I've helped open up and start. I try and sort of give, guide them sort of best way forward, how to shape the club, how to do things, how to run their sessions initially and then split their sessions. But there'll always be people do things differently. But I think around, especially around sparring, I think we've got to become better at sort of managing how we, how we sort of bring our boxers on rather than just chuck them in and let them spar openly from the start. I'm a great believer in tech sparring. You know, conditions control sparring. I'm a great. But I very, very rarely take any sparring where it's open unless it's with another club who've come down and we've arranged it. But even then I usually ask them to take 10% of power out of it. No need to go all out.

Adam Haniver [00:42:11]:
Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think that is a big educational piece but it's also a cultural thing, isn't it? It's very much wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Especially if you are inviting another club down then you know, you want to pressure test your boxers a little bit.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:42:24]:
Yeah.

Adam Haniver [00:42:24]:
Just because it's important to make that bridge between sparring and competition. But the whole culture of spar, spar spar open sparring every night, they're there, there's damage, there's damage. We've got to mitigate that.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:42:37]:
Yeah, definitely. I don't like to see it. I like the idea of also taking them out of our gym, taking other gyms out of their comfort zone because when they're sparring constantly in their own gym they get so used to it and then they go out on a show and they freeze. Whereas if you're taking them out sparring elsewhere quite regular they're quite used to it. They get quite used to it and they're more relaxed and they get to know all the other boxers as well which is handy sometimes.

Adam Haniver [00:42:59]:
Yeah I think just going another gym, another environment, people you don't know rings different shapes up. All of that is stuff that you're going to get when you compete so why not introduce it into it? But yeah, I just think that we could do with a little bit more education around what good sparring is, what it looks like, how we develop skill, how we mitigate risk a lot more and I think we are getting better at that but I think we're working towards that. Go on then the final, the final one then before we always sign off then the locker. How we doing?

Dan O'Sullivan [00:43:30]:
I think the locker is actually a gift. It's a real good piece of software are far better than the Vault ever was or could be but it's one of those situations where we've got. It's a such a massive change to volunteers that are running their clubs. I can see why, I can understand why so many people have been up in arms and screaming I can't get my lanyard. I can't get my QR code. I can't get this, can't get that. But it is finally settling. I've noticed over the last few weeks. I mean we're six months in there Adam but that first month or two was manic. You know I'm only supposed to work 35 hour week. I was easily doing 60 hours a week just meeting people, sitting down trying to. And I'm no IT expert either. That's one of my actual downfalls in life. I'm not very good with IT but I've got my head round locker. I spent a lot of time working on it and I feel like I can very easily show someone else how to do it. You know how to use it. It's a good bit of equipment. It's constantly improving as well. What I like about it it's got a feedback feature where people can ask things to be changed. If enough people ask for the same thing they do listen. Sport80 the provider of locker are constantly changing things, improving it and there will be change. I know there's changes in the pipeline to how it looks at the moment and when you log on there at the moment you see your photo. I know a lot of people want to see the boxer's record and their club as well, because you have to click a few buttons to get into that at the moment. But I think those things will change. And I do think one thing England Boxing has done is listened. The locker was sort of launched pretty quickly without much notice, and that was largely because the contract with the Vault was running out and it was a case of either get this new contract up and running or renew the contract with the Vault. 

So we had to migrate all of the information from the Vault onto the Locker, which was quite a thing, I've got to say. Credit to Avon Perryman, of all people. He was the man behind the locker coming in and he knew everything about it. But as he found and I found, there's quite a few things we hadn't thought about when it come in. And so we spent a lot of time going around to the clubs doing work, surgeries and workshops just to sort of get people used to it. I mean, I'm sure you remember when the Vault was first released and it was pandemonium then we had exactly the same thing. No one knew how to use it. But then some people become really good with it, the Vault. I must admit, I never really got my head around the Vault, but I've got my head around the locker, but probably because I'm an employee. But yeah, now I spend a lot of time, a lot of people that have problems with the Vault, the locker still getting them around the wrong way. I'll just get them to come down to my gym or I pop to their gym or I'll meet them for a coffee, sit down, we go through it and I usually take my laptop. I'll also show them on the phone because I do think the. The locker's quite sort of phone friendly. But what I will say with that at the moment, if you're an iPhone person, if you're a Android, it seems, seems to have been a little bit more problematic and there were things we didn't expect. I mean, the QR codes, the boxers e-passes, the coaches e-passes. I can see us ditching lanyards. Over the next few years, if you've got a QR code, you go into the venue, you show it to supervisor, supervisor or whoever it is, gives you a wristband to get you in the field of play. Why do we need a lanyard?

Adam Haniver [00:46:39]:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree. I've said to a few people, when I'm sort of rubbing shoulders, show you standing there with another coach or whatever and just watching about, I said to them, I think in I don't know how many years time it might be three years, five years. When we look back at what we were doing pre-locker and almost laugh and go, how did we do it with the paper stuff? Because before we pressed, before we pressed the record button, we were having a chat weren't we and I said the worst problem I had was getting a passport from a mum or a dad, getting them to bring it in, getting it back to them, stamped, addressed, envelope off, going to the post office, paying for that stamped, addressed, envelope, getting it back, getting it forward, all that stuff, I just, yeah, it's gone. But you sort of think maybe in five years, when we look back at it, we go, oh, this is how we used to do it. And all those coaches, we'll be going to all the new brigade, this is what we did. And they'll laugh at us. While it's uncomfortable now and it is still uncomfortable, there's still a few bits. I'm like, what do I do? What do I do here? I think those fires will slowly be put out. Every season as more people get more competent every season around it. But I think we'll look back and just laugh. I think, why, Surely we should have done that 20 years ago, maybe.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:47:45]:
How much time did you spend looking for your BCR1 cards? I mean, I don't know about you, I. I was constantly looking for missing cards, whether it was coaches that forgot to pick the card up from a show, whether I'd left it in my coat pocket or was in the car or I've left it at a show so many times and so many mistakes on those cards as well. Whereas now I think it's much harder for mistakes to be made. We can't lose the cards. They're digital, they're online, no one can interfere with them. It's so much easier to transfer boxers and coaches. In fact, I would go as far as to say it's too easy to transfer now. It's literally press a button, someone clicks a button on their phone, they get a notification via email and that's the transfer done. It's a lot, lot easier. And I always said to people, it's this initial sort of upload of data, boxers records. Once we've got that done, we've cracked it, because we'll have. We'll have a kind of almost like a boxrec kind of database at some point perhaps not exactly the same, but it's definitely going in that direction. And I do think I can see the potential. 

I've always seen, I've always thought it was odd you'd have a ringside recorder sitting there writing all about sheets down. And you know as well as I do, that recorder sheet just sits in a drawer somewhere for years and years. No one ever looks at it. Whereas now that the information's being retained, we can use it in the future as part of the matchmaking database. And not only is it being retained, it's being input by someone who's impartial at ringside is secure and only certain people have access to it. Matchmakers or primary contacts. Yeah, I do think it's definitely got. It's getting better, but I already think it's better than the vault anyway. A lot better.

Adam Haniver [00:49:27]:
Yeah, I think everyone listening to this right now will agree with that, but yeah, definitely on the up. Listen, Dan, really appreciate your time, mate. My sort of objective was just to shine a little bit more light on Dan, as opposed to Dan the MC, but Dan the coach Dan the CSO down the bloody everything that's in that. In that title that I said right at the start. So hopefully people have got a bit more of an idea of you. Absolute boxing man, through and through. So really appreciate your time, mate, and yeah, I look forward to seeing you sprinting and wearing out another pair of Italian shoes.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:49:58]:
Thank you very much for the opportunity, Adam. Appreciate it. And I appreciate what you do as well because you've got a thankless task as well.

Adam Haniver [00:50:03]:
Haven't we all? I appreciate that. Thanks, mate.

Dan O'Sullivan [00:50:06]:
Take care. See you soon. Bye. Bye. Bye.