DUDLEY'S Priory Park Boxing Club has been officially handed the Queen's Award.

The popular club has been recognised by the prestigious royal honour for its voluntary work in the community.

Priory Park's Paul Gough was given the award by Lord Lieutenant Mr John Crabtree last weekend.

"It was a really good day for the club," said Gough.

"It's great for everyone to be recognised for all the hard work they put in. It is for everyone from the committee members all the way to the boxers.

"We had Ian Austin, the mayor and mayoress and all the people that support us.

"Hopefully this will help us with other future plans and it means we can put the Queen's emblem on our letter heads and have the award on the wall.

"It's great to get the recognition because I don't know many boxing club that have received the award.

"We don't do anything different to a lot of other boxing clubs up and down the country. They all work really hard but we are fortunate enough that the councillors in our area think so highly of our club because it needs people like that to put you forward.

"We're really busy at the moment so everything is heading in the right direction for the club too.

"We extended the facilities to try and get away from having a waiting list but we still have that even now.

"We have gone from 50 people to 150 but still we have people waiting to join. We have 38 juniors in each session and all the older classes are filling up too."