"I'm keen to find my place in this world": Travelling fight club

Forget running away to join the circus, this kid has run away to join fight club. We follow Fred Brophy's Outback Boxing Tour to Birdsville in Queensland.

Every year since 1982, thousands converge on the tiny Outback Queensland town of Birdsville for a two day racing carnival.

Fred Brophy's troup of boxers are the main attraction.

Setting up a huge tent in the middle of the carnival, Brophy's boxers get to go head-to-head with anyone brave enough to stick their hand up and step into the ring.

It's brutal, it's bloody, but it's all in the name of fun.
Boxing 2
Source: The Feed
"Fred Brophy's a showman," says Billy The Kidd, who left his job as a plumber to join Fred Brophy's Outback Boxing Tour.

"He's been doing it for a long time. Us against them, some blokes but their hands up and Fred's beating the drum.

"Just get in there, have a crack and do our best, you know?"

One such bloke brave enough to have a go was Burkie Boy, who said it had been his lifelong dream to step into a boxing ring.

"I made it known from the start I can't fight," he says.
"I'm keen to find my place in this world"
"I was doing it for the experience."

The Birdsville boxing tent has even attracted fighters from overseas, who have stumbled across the event by accident and caught the boxing bug.

For Billy The Kid, he knows he can't do it forever. But for right now?

"I'm keen to find my place in this world," he says.

"I'm hoping it's somewhere more than a stinky building site but here I am, out here in Birdsville.

"I'm enjoying my time with the tent."
Boxing 3
Source: The Feed
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By SBS Staff
Source: SBS

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