"It is cold, dark and dingy, and purposely so. No jacuzzis or state-of-the-art steam rooms in this scruffy stone hut with a corrugated roof under which is scrawled "Newbridge Boxing Club"
The club itself is in its second generation, as the original clubhouse, deemed unsafe by the local council, was demolished in 2002. Following the demolition, Joe and his father Enzo bought another clubhouse just a mile away in Cwmcarn and set about transforming an old rugby club into a boxing gym.[4]
The club is situated near an industrial park next to a rugby pitch and reached by a set of wooden steps on which the boxers use to train. The sign greeting people is hand painted and trash dots the weedy yard.[5] This impression of the club does not meet expectations when people think about it being the training HQ for a World champion. According to a reporter from the LA Times who visited the clubhouse prior to Joe's clash with Bernard Hopkins, "in places, it’s just a few notches north of squalid". One reporter during the same press trip is alleged to have spotted a dead mouse floating in a sink.[6]
Despite appearances Joe Calzaghe has described the place as feeling "like a palace" compared with the previous gym which had a ring made out of carpet and held up by broom handles.[7] Prior to the move to the new clubhouse boxers had trained for years in what Joe describes as "the mangiest little building you could possibly imagine" with no heating, no showers, bad toilets and buckets to trap the rain.[8]
