IN a small shed just off Seventh Street, rows of leather bags swing back and forth, the sound of their creaking chains and the crack of leather on leather ring out in the tight space.
Twenty-seven tiny bones, delicately wrapped in metres of fabric and forced into tight gloves continuously pound against them, creating a beat in which the boxers in the ring dip, dive and dance to.
Coaches hold pads for kids 40 years their junior, fighters stare into mirrors throwing lightning-fast combinations and a rope expertly whips beneath the feet of a boxer as he lightly bounces on his toes.
In the ring, a boxer drives the ball of his foot into the ground, his hips push forward, mid-section twisting, muscles in his back tensing as he sends a punch straight like an arrow at his opponent, friend and brother.
He slips, the punch whizzing past him. A game of inches, one percenters and dedication.
All of this unfolds under the watchful eye of coach and proprietor Steven Ladd.
“Consistency, that’s what makes this club so strong,” Ladd said.
“You see it in clubs all the time. They have one fighter here and there and they look like they are going to go well and you never see them again.
“The reason we have been so successful is because these boxers have stuck with us.
“The clubs that have the fighters there consistently are the fighters who eventually have success.”
Ladd boxed throughout the 1980s, honing his craft and learning from Mildura boxing greats Laurie Green and Bob Hogarth, before taking up coaching in 1992.
It wasn’t until 2018 that Ladd’s Boxing Club was born when Steve’s son, Jackson, approached him about getting a club up and running.
“Once upon a time, there were 20 boxing clubs in Mildura it was pretty popular, our gym is about carrying the history of boxing in Mildura,” Ladd said.
“I believe I have had very good fundamental training from the word go, we haven’t re-invented the wheel. If you give people in any sport the best fundamentals they are going to achieve more.”
Ladd’s is uniquely a not-for-profit gym, with all of the money raised through membership fees and fundraising going directly into the club to pay for travel and accommodation for its fighters.
“I studied the great trainers like Emmanuel Stuart and he speaks about the old days where they’d have kids come in and they’d do bus trips to fights and that was the only time they left their little towns in America,” he said.
“They didn’t have much money or homes and coming to their gym felt like a safe space and I thought ‘that’s what I want to do here’.”
Since 2018, the club’s list of accolades is long, winning country boxing club of the year, Mallee Sports Assembly award for club of the year, and narrowly missing out on the state award for boxing club of the year, beaten by one point by goliath Adelaide boxing club West Centrals.
The club also boast medals at state and national level, fighters attending the AIS and being selected for Super 8 teams as well as Mildura’s first female and youngest boxer, Ruby Darcy, 12.
Star fighters, brothers Gab and Henry Toutai, who had previously trained at another club before moving to Ladd’s, this week reflected on the club’s success.
“You can’t just come in and leave or come back two months later and expect to do well. If you are in there every day training, it will pay off,” Gab said.
His brother echoed the sentiment.
“If you are not 100 per cent dedicated, you won’t make it, if your mind isn’t always on boxing you will fall behind against the better guys,” Henry said.
“Running every day is the bare minimum. That’s what everyone is doing to become a great boxer. You have to do what everyone else is not doing.”
The siblings said they were motivated to give back to a club which had done so much for them.
“If you don’t trust your coach and they don’t trust you as their fighter, you won’t get far,” Gab said.
“I am obviously trying to win and get selected for these elite teams, but I want to put the Ladd’s name out there as well.”
Henry agreed.
“They put so much of their time into us so I want to get them wins,” he said.
Ladd said that while being a regional boxing club had its challenges, their “consistency” and focus allowed them to succeed against the odds.
“Travel is the biggest challenge we face but now because we are becoming so well known, we are getting backing from Mildura Rural City Council and the Mallee Assembly Sport,” he said.
“Sometimes being out of the city can help you because they don’t see you train they don’t know what you’re doing.
“We now have high level boxers asking to come and train up here and the coach of the state development team is running a state development camp up here.”
Ladd looks around the gym at walls adorned with boxers of old and said while the medals and trophies were great, that wasn’t what it was all about.
“I would like people to view the club as family friendly, giving back to the community and that old school attitude of teaching respect and good morals,” he said.
“If we have a kid who walks in here with a troubled home or feeling lost, if we help make their life happier, that is a success.”
