Wolverhampton Wrestling Club will step up its engagement work across schools and the local community as it seeks to provide a tangible legacy for the Kabbadi World Cup next March.
It is the first time the showpiece event has been staged outside of Asia, with the West Midlands Combined Authority and the Commonwealth Games Legacy Fund awarding the city £500,000 to host events.
Men's and women's teams from across the world including India, Iran and Pakistan will compete in the elite tournament.
BENEFITS
But it is providing sustained benefits for the local community which is the key motivation for Ranjit Singh (pictured below), Head Coach of Wolverhampton Wrestling Club. The club already provides extensive services with programmes aimed at increasing community cohesion and reducing crime to supporting physical and mental health and wellbeing.
And Singh is delighted that the event, through the club, will be supporting this much-needed provision in a deprived area of the city.
“We have always been involved with local schools but because of the Kabbadi World Cup coming here, we have been able to help build that legacy,” he said.
“It’s the first time the World Cup has left Asia, so it’s massive for us to be hosting it in the Midlands, and for the finals to be in Wolverhampton.
“We will be working across 10 schools in Wolverhampton, teaching wrestling and kabbadi, and introducing young people to our awards scheme. We work on a basic level to begin with, so a 10-week course before the end of the year and then 10 more weeks after it, leading up to the World Cup.
“Then the club will have some participation and acknowledgement at the World Cup itself.”
Remarkably Wolverhampton Wrestling Club is in its 52nd year, and Singh believes these latest community interventions are “just the continuation of that long history in wrestling and kabbadi”.
EDUCATION
He explained: “We do a lot of work around sport’s pathways from a grassroots level, welcoming kids as young as three, right up to adults, and providing education for coaches.”
The club is based at the Guru Nanak Satsang Gurdwara on the Cannock Road in Wolverhampton. It was the first Sikh temple to be founded in the city in 1966, and Singh – who was named a ‘hometown hero’ during the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and the Black Country, and received the King’s Award for Voluntary Service in 2023 – places huge significance on its role and purpose within the local community.
During the first lockdown in 2020, he transformed the club into a foodbank and distribution service, and also arranged for PPE to be manufactured and distributed to day care centres, hospitals, doctors’ surgeries and West Midlands Police. Bespoke equipment was also supplied to key workers and faith centres.
Since then and even as restrictions eased, the club continued to offer this provision and a group of volunteers serve food to members of the local community, including vulnerable and homeless people.
Singh is proud of how the club’s membership remains “very diverse”, including a focus on driving female participation with a new women’s team recently introduced.
“It’s not something that we have done as a tickbox, it’s been like that since day one. On a daily basis you will have Sikhs, Muslims, Christians attending; brown, black or white, rich and poor.
He added: “We are located in a very deprived area, and we get a lot of acknowledgement for the work we do around crime prevention – including knife crime – and around food supply.
“We are working within curriculum time in schools, and then there’s the pathway into afterschool clubs and into Wolverhampton Wrestling Club and our academies.”
Read more about Wolverhampton Wrestling Club.
Read about the Kabbadi World Cup.
Pic credits: Wolverhampton Express & Star; Levelling The Playing Field.
