Scotland on Sunday: WHEN Irvine Welsh needed a name for the anti-hero of his drug-infested novel Trainspotting, he chose Renton. It was perhaps significant that nobody in the village of that name in the Vale of Leven in West Dunbartonshire complained about a potential slur on their reputation.

For Renton is multiply deprived, home to high unemployment and serious drug addiction problems, a post-industrial wasteland of a kind that is common in Margaret Thatcher's true legacy to Scotland. It had one hope - its people. The majority of residents are decent folk, and they somehow have an amazing community spirit, as shown by the number of clubs and organisations in the village.

Some are proud to wear the name of Renton, from where the first football world champions famously hailed. The village team were Scottish Cup winners and beat English cup winners West Bromwich Albion to claim the 'world' title in 1888.

Renton Amateur Boxing Club was just one organisation happy to be associated with the village. For more than 30 years since it was founded by Richard 'Skeets' Gallacher, the world's best amateur flyweight in 1948, Renton ABC had survived like beacon of hope for boys and young men.

Located in the village's Community Education Centre in the Main Street, Renton ABC welcomed young pugilists from any background and first Skeets Gallacher and then present trainer John Connolly taught them the disciplines of the Noble Art.

In March, in a decision of almost monumental folly, owners West Dunbartonshire Council summarily closed Renton CE Centre. For good measure they closed Renton Library. The boxing club's leadership was not consulted. Nobody was...

Questioned by Scotland on Sunday, West Dunbartonshire would only say "the Council does not accept that it failed to comply with any statutory provisions requiring consultation. This is the subject matter of a Petition for Judicial Review which is to proceed to a Hearing the Court of Session and so it would be inappropriate to comment further."

In other words, they didn't bother consulting and Robert Toole and Pauline McGoldrick have them bang to rights.

Jim Bollan is a left-wing firebrand, a member of the Scottish Socialist Party, who has recovered from great personal tragedy - his daughter committed suicide in Cornton Vale prison and his wife passed away having never fully recovered from the loss - to lead the community in their fight against West Dunbartonshire.

"It's as if they wanted to close down Renton altogether," said Bollan. "I can't help thinking that it was payback time by New Labour for the people of Renton voting for me." The fact that White and his cohorts hail from Clydebank, traditional rival town to Dumbarton, was also not lost on Bollan...

According to Jim Bollan, the council's actions have sparked a new air of revolution in the village. It would appear that Renton's boxers, indeed Rentonians everywhere, have only just begun to fight.