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For a gym affiliated with some of Australia's highest-profile boxers, the entrance to the Elouera Tony Mundine Gym is more of the "blink and you'll miss it" variety than the ostentatious displays commonly associated with the sport. The graffitied door is set into a tiny alcove that leads through to a dark, cramped stairwell adorned with Aboriginal designs and the odour of sweat and deep heat cream.

Inside, the boxing connection is immediately evident, with a well-worn ring dominating one side of the gym and faded photographs of past and present boxing legends lining the walls around it. The gym is owned by Australia boxing champion Tony Mundine and managed by Alex Tui, a World Kickboxing Champion.

"This is a grassroots gym, it's a real blood, sweat and tears gym," says Mick Mundine, CEO of the Aboriginal Housing Company and Tony's brother. "You go in there and you can smell it."

The large Aboriginal flag painted on the outside of the building, an enduring symbol of Redfern's indigenous community, belies the diverse range of people that train here, who come from all over Sydney to do so. It has also broadened its range of exercise options to include circuit classes, yoga and dance.

Mundine says there is an athletics trainer who regularly brings a group of non-indigenous children to the gym for their training sessions.

"You know when all the rain was coming down? They still came back here. There's got to be something good down in that gymnasium for them to keep coming back."

That something seems to be the community spirit of a gym that encompasses everyone from professional boxers to local children. Even on a quiet Thursday afternoon, when the radio playing behind the front desk is louder than the handful of people lifting weights and practicing on the worn punching bags, there is something in the air besides the smell of sweat. "We have people who come up, they might be drug users or they might be alcoholics, they come up to the gym because they remember this was a place where they found some kind of energy that was good for them," says Tui.

"It's got the best social support structure in Sydney and it incorporates the whole family," says Kevin, a long-term resident of Redfern who has trained at the gym for past few years.

Like the champions that it has produced, the gym has fought many rounds since it opened in the mid-80s. One of its toughest bouts has been overcoming the widely-reported troubles associated with the plot of land on which it stands.

"In the Nineties, the drugs really crept in here, they really tore the heart out of this community," remembers Mundine. "But sometimes you've got to go through that vicious cycle in life sometimes before you can experience the good times. What happened in the past was a good learning experience for the gymnasium."

In 2004, government funding of the gym ceased when it was decided that it no longer satisfied the criteria for financial support. Mundine says it was because the gym was being used by all nationalities, and was no longer predominantly Aboriginal, that the funding was cut.

According to Tui, "There was hardly anyone using it when I started working here, except for a couple of the boxers and people who came to use it casually," he says. "I opened it up to the public so they were aware it was available for their use, because a lot of people looked at it as being an Aboriginal gym."

The gym survives on contributions made by those who train here, but those who run it insist the gym remains a community service. "Although we charge a small entry fee to help with our costs, it's not something that stops any of the locals from coming here because they don't have to pay if they can't," says Tui.

Mundine says the gym plays an important role in the local community. "If we see anybody that's racist or condemning people, they're out the door. We've had enough of that in the past. I really believe now that we're in the new millennium that it's time to break down those vicious barriers."

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