"The combination of faith and sport is very, very powerful"
Saturday 6 June 2020 20:17, UK
Father Dave Smith will often preach the word of God on a Sunday morning with two black eyes sustained the night before.
'The Fighting Father' changes peoples' lives through The Bible and through boxing, his two great beliefs that he insists work hand-in-hand to build bridges.
"It looks pretty odd," the boxing priest laughs at splitting his time between the church and the ring but his unique methods have saved some of the most at-risk young people in Australia.
Father Dave is an Anglican priest who preaches at Holy Trinity church in Sydney, in an inner-city area once known for its substance abuse. He ran a youth centre, reliant on donations, alongside his church duties to give people somewhere else to go aside from the dangerous streets.
When his passion project was threatened with closure he fought for what he believed in. Literally.
"We owed $1,000 Australian bucks to our youth worker. We couldn't pay," Father Dave told Sky Sports. "We were running a full-time drop-in.
"I had the archdeacon in my office wagging his finger and saying: 'You can't keep going, you've got no money!'
"As he's talking, my trainer walks into the office and says: 'Do you want a pro boxing match? You're being offered $1,000?'
"I said: 'I'll take it!'"
Father Dave had boxed as an amateur but, until this moment in 1996, hadn't thought that boxing could be the salvation that his youth programme needed.
"We raised more than $50,000 for that fight which kept us going for another year. And that's how we paid the youth worker.
"We started putting on shows for the boys we were working with. It kept the funding coming in. And I'd make myself the main-event!"
It is, of course, ridiculous to imagine the local priest moonlighting as a boxer. But Father Dave's passion for the sport, and for how it can help at-risk youths, comes from personal experience.
"I was a rough and stupid kid myself, once upon a time," he said. "My mother died when I was young and I went off the rails, but I found that fight training kept me steady.
"I reached a point where I was drinking myself to sleep every day. I thought: 'What else do I enjoy doing?'
"I enjoyed training so, whenever I wanted a drink, I went for a run instead. I became a professional boxer instead of an alcoholic.
"This programme has worked for me, so I know it can work for the kids."
Empowered by his faith, Father Dave pursued boxing as a physical outlet to turn his own life around. He began helping others do the same and, in his area of Sydney, there were plenty who needed his guidance.
His official boxing record claims he has had three fights - a draw on his debut in 1996, then two wins in 2016 and 2018, aged 56. But this is no gimmick. The 20 years in between his official boxing matches featured over 100 unregulated, amateur fights which brought donations into his youth centre and gave focus to the kids who swapped drugs for gloves.
"I'm not the best fighter. But I've definitely won more than I've lost," Father Dave said.
"The longer the fight, the better I am. But after 40 you're only allowed to do three rounds. I'm good at outlasting people - I'm not the strongest or fastest but I can keep going when the other guys are worn out.
"I work in close where the speed doesn't matter. I can wear most people out if I can get through the first three rounds."
He ponders how churchgoers feel about his other passion: "It looks pretty odd, at a distance. But the reality is that so many people say: 'Thank you for what you've done for my son'.
"But it's not me. It's the boxing.
"In the context of respect and good mentoring, this has been used around the world and throughout history. Look at the role boxing has had in Northern Ireland or South Africa to bring people together.
"Am I taking 10 years off their lives? The kids I work with, I'm putting 30 years on the front of their lives! Their life expectancy is short."
So has Father Dave changed more lives through faith or through boxing?
"I wouldn't put them in opposition," he says after a long pause to think. "They work together. I don't ask people to call me Father in the gym, but they do.
"Guys in the gym know I have another agenda, I'm not just interested in teaching them how to beat people up.
"What I've done well in this life is to help build communities."
Father Dave is speaking from a boxing gym outside of Sydney, in the Australian outback, a gathering of people with the same beliefs. It is a serious gym with amateurs who have boxed for the state title. Aged 58 Father Dave is sparring with young contenders who are gunning for the national championships.
"Out here at the bush camp we have a community of fighters to nurture, like a group of fighting monks!
"We opened the bush camp as an extension to the work we were doing with the kids in the city. We are now developing work with indigenous kids.
"Originally our bread and butter were kids with substance abuse problems but now we try to build bridges with other communities.
"We pray together each day, eat together each day, and train together each day."
The message that Father Dave teaches has spread abroad. Helping people in Syria has become a newer passion. Last year he boxed in that country too, he says.
"There is huge potential for using boxing as a medium for building bridging between faith groups.
"The combination of faith and sport is very, very powerful."
Father Dave's faith will last forever but he knows the boxing has a time limit.
His age is already prohibiting professional fights. He said: "I was due to fight last year but it was blocked half an hour before I was due to go on! They were worried my opponent was young enough to be my son - which was true!
"But we put the fight on unofficially and I won every round. His age suggested I was at risk…
"This is the problem I've got. I want another fight."
Things are changing for Father Dave, not least in the area of Sydney in which his church sits. Now "people get sick" of him talking about the positive impact of boxing.
"The parish has moved on," he said. "We're not the heroin capital anymore. House prices are 10 times what they used to be. We have become gentrified so people don't appreciate the boxing references anymore. Our demographic has changed."
Black eyes on a Sunday morning? "People have started to feel that it's distasteful."
But Father Dave won't go down without a fight.
"As soon as I can't handle myself in the ring then I'll stop. But by the grace of God I'm in good shape now.
"I'm able to handle guys young enough to be my sons. When I can't, I'll stop."
Does Father Dave believe he was put on this earth to help peoples' lives through faith and boxing combined?
"I think so, brother. But part of that calling? I've still got a few fights left in me!"
