Eric's not ready to throw in the towel - yet

“You learn as you grow older, you learn more, and you never stop learning. There’s always different things you can learn,” says Eric Sincock, who has spent 26 years coaching at Papanui Boxing with that philosophy always front of mind.

Now 82, Eric has stepped back from running the club but still shows up three nights a week, and on Sundays, to train fighters.

“If you can do something for people, why not?” he said.

He credits his wife Pam for her support during his life of coaching.

“You have to have the backing from home because you put a bloody lot of time into it,” he said.

“Pam used to wash all the gear from tournaments. They (family) are in the background but they make it easier for you.”

Eric and fellow Papanui coaches Sam Watt, Mike Pimley, and Graham Cloney had five of their charges in the ring at the Canterbury Match Bout hosted by Woolston Boxing Club and Canterbury Boxing last Saturday.

Eric first got involved in the club in 1999 due to Pimley, who had founded it in 1978. At the time, both were working as slaughtermen at the Belfast meat works.

“I used to follow the boxing and then Mike said: ‘Why don’t you come down one night?’

“I must have got some enjoyment to keep going for so long, and I like trying to help people too,” Eric said.

Today, he and Paul Fitzsimmons from FitzBoxing, both 82, are the oldest active coaches in Canterbury after Alex Fidow died earlier this year at 91.

Eric has rubbed shoulders with several top boxers – padding for the New Zealand Commonwealth Games team in his early days at the club was an eye-opener into the level needed to coach at the top.

“Phil Shatford was a trainer (at Papanui), and he was New Zealand coach,” Eric said.

“In about 2000, he came into the gym with the Commonwealth Games team, and he said ‘you go and pad them’.

“(It was) pretty daunting, Shane Cameron and all them. Phil made me do it, but once I had done it, I had the confidence to go on.”

Eric went on to coach Canterbury five times between 2001 and 2015.

At Papanui, fighters aren’t charged to be a member. Instead, they are asked to give a donation, which Eric said works well, with a number of fighters coming from low-income backgrounds.

“Some can afford it and some can’t, but most of them will put in a donation,” he said.

“And Sam (Watt, coach) is an accountant, he knows how to get some (gaming trust) funding.”

Though Watt now oversees day-to-day operations at the club, Eric has no plans to quit coaching.

“It keeps me going, I suppose. If you get to my age, it’s day-by-day, week-by-week, but I intend to carry on as long as I can.

“We (he and Pimley) have paid a lot of money out of our own pocket to get boys here and there. We wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for the love of the sport and helping someone.

“Guys who have had a harder life, you can save them from going down the wrong track.”