June 25, 2011
SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian high school has suspended a group of teenage students after discovering they had been holding regular "fight club" bouts at lunchtime, officials said Friday.
South Australian state Education Minister Jay Weatherill said mobile phone footage of the fights showed male and female pupils throwing punches at each other at the southern Whyalla school.
"They went into an unused room and in groups, using boxing gloves, (were) carrying out a fight club (that) was of course unauthorised and from time to time some students were injured through that," he told ABC Radio.
"All of the students who participated and all of the bystanders have been suspended by the school." It is understood that 24 students aged about 15 and 16 had been suspended.
Stuart High School staff were not available for comment but principal Veronica Conley told the Adelaide Advertiser that the club was based on the 1999 movie "Fight Club" in which disaffected men secretly gathered to fight.
Conley said staff were shocked to learn that students had climbed in through windows to an unused room and set up a makeshift ring to punch each other while others stood guard.
"It was not horrible, they were using boxing gloves and if anyone got hurt they stopped the fight and checked if he was all right," she told the paper.
"Some of the parents were upset that we suspended everyone we identified on the footage, even those who were watching, but it was not safe, some schools have boxing at their school but it needs to be supervised."
South Australian police said they were working with the school on the issue but no charges had been laid.