CPO PR from KO king

Now here’s a novel scheme, the details of which, though, seem to be hard to come by. I can find no reference to it on the Nottingham City Council website but the BBC reported tonight that our old friend Carl Froch (you remember him, I’m sure, from posts on this blog and others; he’s the Nottingham boxer being paid £1000 an hour for 32 hours promotional work for the City Council) is throwing his considerable weight behind a recruitment campaign for auxiliary Community Protection Officers.

Froch: Can we look forward to him pounding the city's streets as a CPO?

This is also reported in the Evening Post but the bit that is unclear to me is that, from the BBC report, these ‘auxiliary’ posts seem to be voluntary ones (a bit like Special Constables) set up to support the full-time CPO’s employed by the City Council, yet this doesn’t seem to be being made very explicit.

If they are unpaid posts (or even if they aren’t, actually), the sight of the very highly paid Mr Froch, once again imploring Nottingham’s citizens to do their bit for the community will surely make many city residents want to spit…

… but not on the pavement; the CPO’s can fine you for that.

Box your way out of this, City Council…

You couldn’t make it up…

Nottingham City Council agree to pay World Champion Boxer Carl Froch £32,000 to represent the city and to act as an ambassador for Nottingham on his international travels… and then the police object to plans by Rock City to stage boxing at their city-centre venue

The reason: the police think that they would have to deal with: “ drunk and ‘adrenalin-fuelled’ boxing fans causing disturbances in the area”.

I’d love to be at the City Council Licensing Committee meeting on Thursday when this is discussed.

From street to ring; a tale of two boxers

I still think that teaching youngsters to box (by definition, how to cause physical damage to another person as effectively as possible) is not something that we should be considering doing more of.

Khaliq - Inspiring young people?

Some of our politicians seem wedded to the romantic ’East End boy made good’ scenario of Hollywood movies where youngsters are rescued from a life of crime and put back on the straight and narrow through joining the local boxing club (usually run by the parish priest). It may have worked in the 50’s (if it ever did) but the world has changed and this seems like a very blunt instrument to solve potential anti-social behaviour issues.

Having said that, an article in the Evening Post struck me for two reasons. Firstly, young people involved in a boxing club in Bakersfield (the posh end of Sneinton) say how boxing had helped them to be fitter (no argument there) and to gain in confidence. This could also be good for them… as long as it isn’t the sort of confidence that comes from being able to knock seven bells out of the other kids at school.

But, the other fact about this club that struck me is that it is run by former World Champion Jawaid Khaliq, who comes from The Meadows… and he seems to be doing it for nothing. Although the scheme is funded by the Government in an effort to get kids off the street (I’m not sure what’s wrong with kids being on the street as long as they aren’t mugging old ladies and stealing cars…), the EP article makes no mention of payment to Khaliq and it would appear that he’s running this club because he genuinely wants to help young people and, as he says: “… give them the focus and discipline that I had received from my training”.

Contrast this with the £1000 an hour that the City Council is paying to another Nottingham World Champion, Carl Froch, simply to tell everyone what a fine place Nottingham is (oh, and to display the coat of arms… or the slanty ‘N’… or a picture of Jon Collins… or something, on his dressing gown;  the one he wears in the ring rather than his bedroom, I suppose) .

Notwithstanding my general objections to boxing, I know which service I think is more valuable to the city and its residents, How about you?

City’s Froch deal is misguided

My Nottingham blogging colleague Nottingham City Council LOL’s has discovered that the City Council intend to give super-middleweight boxing champion Carl Froch a contract for “a defined programme of commercial and community activities and benefits over a 12 month period” for which they will pay him £1000 per hour.

Leaving aside the obvious obscenity of such an arrangement as the City prepares to make over 450 people redundant and is planning cuts in services as a result, I’m intrigued by two other aspects of this deal.

Typical boxing injury. Is this really what we want our young people to aspire to?

The City Council report that details Councillor Graham Chapman’s decision, says that one of the aims of the contract with Froch will be to promote health. However, the British Medical Association (the professional association for doctors, who probably know a bit about health) want boxing banned. They say that their opposition to the ’sport’: “is based on medical evidence that reveals the risk not only of acute injury but also of chronic brain damage which is sustained cumulatively in those who survive a career in boxing. It may take many years before boxers and ex-boxers find out they are suffering from brain damage.”  This doesn’t seem like a very positive health message.

And if Mr Froch, presumably a fairly wealthy man, is so proud of his home town and so keen to promote it abroad and act as a role model for Nottingham youngsters, would he not perhaps consider providing his time and the advantages of his celebrity status, to the city for nothing?

Plenty of other people in Nottingham volunteer their time, skills and efforts in the interests of others… but they’re not famous for inflicting legalised GBH on other people so I guess they don’t count.