IT HAS been the longest fight in their history but now members of a top Southampton boxing club are into the final round of a four-year bout to win new training facilities.

City planners have at last given approval for a new gym for the Golden Ring Boxing Club.

The project will see new state-of-the-art training facilities built for the club in Mansel Park, Millbrook, as well as a new community hall which will rise out of the ashes of the former hall which was burned down by vandals.

The 710 square metre building forms part of radical makeover of the park in Millbrook which was revealed in the Daily Echo last month.

The facelift for the park will include new play areas for youngsters, footpath links and a garden.

At the centre of the £340,000 makeover will be the sports pavilion which will provide much needed facilities for local youngsters.

At the moment, youths from Millbrook have to go to Freemantle to train. Up to 70 youngsters attend the sessions but when the club is completed in Feb 2007, many more will be able to take advantage of the new gym.

Stewart Gill head coach at The Golden Ring Club told the Daily Echo that the new club would help to give youngsters something to do and keep them off the streets.

He said: "We were having to turn kids away. We are going to get a new ring, new punchbags and we are aiming to make sure that the club is as good as we can make it.

"It is not just about getting good boxers. It is about making sure that kids in Millbrook have something to do."

He added that involving youngsters in boxing would help youths stay out of trouble and deter them from becoming involved in drink, drugs and petty crime.

He said: "I am sure it will help lower the crime rate in Millbrook."

Young boxing hopeful Mikey Whitehead, 11, is one of the rising stars of the club. He told the Daily Echo that training at the club was all about developing sportsmanship.

The Bassett Green pupil said: "It's about dedication and fitness and it is something to do out of school. It's a sport I enjoy. I would like to take it further."

Another future star in the making is 13-year-old Josh Bowers. The Coxford teenager, who attends St George's Catholic School for Boys, is the current Southern and Western Counties schools champion at 48kg and began boxing at the club when he was just seven.

He said he would one day like to emulate Olympic boxing hero and silver medallist Amir Khan. He said: "My older brother boxed. It is challenging. My ambition is to box for England."

Mikey's dad, Mike Whitehead, 46, from Bluebell Road in Swaythling said his son had been boxing since he was seven-and-a-half. He said: "He is very dedicated. He knows all about diet and drinking water."

He joked: "He does not eat rubbish. He must be the only boy I know who, when you give a £1 to go to the shops will come back with a bottle of water instead of a packet of crisps and a coke."