Bradford wrestling school featured in BBC show We Are England helps people with mental health issues

But to Gareth, reaching out to people who would not normally think of entering a church demands fresh thinking, and so he has drawn on his passion for wrestling – and the experience of a troubled childhood – to found a unique project in Bradford.

His wrestling school based at Fountains Church, in the city centre, is going from strength to strength since being set up last year, drawing in people who are finding that taking on an opponent in the ring helps them to grapple with the problems in their lives.

Its members include those from marginalised or vulnerable groups, including the LGBTQ+ community and people who have struggled with mental health.

All are finding support and friendship in wrestling, which has also given a massive boost to their self-confidence, thanks to the cheering crowds of fans attending monthly bouts at the church.

Now the school’s story is coming to a nationwide television audience with a We Are England documentary on BBC One. The Bradford Church of Wrestling follows members of the school as they prepare to enter the ring for the first time.

Gareth, 35, from Saltaire, is at the heart of the film. Under his ring name, Gareth Angel, he is a champion wrestler, winning titles all over the country. His sport, and his faith, were the keys to him overcoming the exceptional difficulties of his childhood and young adulthood. It occurred to him that they could help others too, and the word was put out on social media.

“I thought there are so many people who love wrestling, there are so many people who are going through tough times, let’s put a wrestling school on. Let’s see who wants to come and learn and at the same time offer them a safe place to be vulnerable, to share with each other, to help each other...

“My wife was sat with me one time and she just said, ‘You know what, you could do church like this’, and I thought, ‘That’s an interesting idea’. We toyed around with that and we practised this David and Goliath version of a church service with a little bit of worship and it went really well.”

Gareth knows only too well how important support and somebody to talk to are for the vulnerable. As a boy, he was a victim of sexual abuse. His mother also had drink problems and threw him out of the house. He ended up sleeping in a skip for eight weeks.

“I wish someone had come alongside me when I was younger and showed me a different path. This is what I’m trying to do now for some of these guys, saying to them, ‘You can turn this around with the right guidance and the right help’.

“I didn’t have that. I had no positive male role models, my mum was an alcoholic, I was homeless at 15, I was abused as a child. Even after then, I had a failed marriage, I was in debt, found myself unemployed and just depressed, and that experience is what I’m trying to bring to people.”

Gareth is now happily married. He and his wife, Beth, have two daughters, Isabella, two, and Isla, eight months. He works for a Christian social enterprise, Green Pastures, which houses the homeless. The members of his school followed in the film have their own stories of struggle to tell.

One of them is Cris, part of the LGBTQ+ community who identifies as asexual. His sexuality leads him to take the wrestling name Pride. He says: “My mental health has improved coming here. It’s more the regularity of having something to do, the teamwork. I’ve made friends here and I don’t make friends easily. Wrestling has really helped my confidence.”

Another is Emma, who has a chronic pain disability which prevents her from wrestling, but she works backstage, and posts on social media.

She had a breakdown in 2017, but since joining the group nine months ago, her confidence has grown to the extent that at the end of the film she is seen introducing the show and bringing the wrestlers on stage.

Afterwards, she says: “I feel great about myself and it brings out that creative side of me that makes me feel alive.”

Gareth says: “Some of the people that we’re helping have got very complex needs and some of those needs are probably very far off from ever getting fixed. There are peaks and troughs, big highs and big lows, as life is, but we do our best to be there for each other and support each other.

“It was never just going to be a wrestling school. It’s a community of people who are supporting each other through whatever life throws at us, and that’s regardless of the faith aspect of it.”

Some – though not all – of the school have gone on to embrace Christianity and been baptised. But Gareth and the church welcome whoever wants to attend. He believes his school is an example of how churches must adapt if they are to reach out to modern communities.

“I think a lot of people look at church as quite an aged thing. They remember it from being younger, and a lot of churches haven’t been able to adapt and change and reach younger people, and they’re the ones that are dwindling.

"But the churches that are really out there in the community, changing the way they preach and changing the way they worship to suit the modern world are the ones that are thriving.”

The Bradford Church of Wrestling is set to be broadcast on Friday, October 7, BBC One in Yorkshire, North West and Lincolnshire at 7.30pm.