Singh never made it big as a boxer. Posted in Gurgaon as a coach with SAI, in 1996 he was transferred to his hometown Bhiwani. Singh picked a couple of young boxers to take along, one of them a greenhorn called Akhil Kumar. At the new hostel, he met another coach Devraj Singh, and in a few years the fleet of boxers grew in strength.

“That was when I decided that a new academy was a good idea. Many young boys were showing interest, and the SAI centre did not have place for everybody,” recalls Singh.

Then the 2003 Afro-Asian Games came home and Hyderabad’s sporting party gave Indian boxing two gold, five silver and two bronze medals. Akhil and a younger Jitender, from a village near Bhiwani, won golds. Vijender, another local village boy, won a silver, and the town went crazy.

Bhiwani, though, has deeper boxing roots. Hawa Singh, two-time Asian Games gold medallist (1966 and 1970 Bangkok Games), lived here and learnt here, inspiring many to take up the sport. Raj Kumar Sangwan followed suit with golds at two Asian-level meets—in Bangkok in 1991 and in Tehran in 1994.

But even before the history class has rolled, Singh says something startling: “You know, there are a lot of complaints against this club.” About what, you ask. “People say all sorts of things. They have problems about the place (it’s his plot of land, says Singh), the ring that we installed (he says it’s a gift from a local politician), and the fact that it is now the largest boxing club in Bhiwani (the others, about five or six, sprouted later). People spend lakhs on building bathrooms in their houses. I just made two rooms and a shed,” he says.

... contd.