Community martial arts club faces fight to stay alive (From This is The West Country)

Community martial arts club faces fight to stay alive

11:00am Monday 28th June 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

A MARTIAL arts club in Ilminster which has helped turn around the lives of many youngsters faces the chop unless it can attract new members.

World-class fighter Matt Follain set up the South West Black Belt Academy on the Rosemill industrial estate in 2001 as a community venture working with teenagers and younger children.

He has taught hundreds of young men and women from tough backgrounds martial arts, and vital life skills to help get them on the straight and narrow.

But now he is facing a new opponent as he scraps to keep the project up and running after a sharp drop in membership.

Matt told the News: “I have spent £60,000 of my own money to keep this place going and we have attracted some of the biggest names in marital arts here over the years.

“But numbers have been deteriorating and I can’t afford to promote the club in the way it should be and now I have three months to turn it round or it will close.”

Matt, aged 37, says the club doesn’t make a profit and he has applied to Sport England and the Big Lottery Fund for help but has been rejected.

He added: “I make a lot of allowances for the kids who can’t pay but I can’t afford to sustain it anymore.

“I am asking for local people and organisations to help out – the club is an important part of the community and the kids here rely on it.

“I want to keep helping them the same way I was helped to turn my life round when I was a kid.”

Click on the link to find out more, or call Matt on 07774-066230.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)