Hermen Dange’s story is one he’s told numerous times before. In fact, it’s part of his job. That, however, doesn’t ever make it any less noteworthy.
Here are the key parts; Growing up in Collyhurst, Hermen fell in with what he describes as ‘the wrong crowd’ around age 15. This proved to be quite the understatement.
In pursuit of a celebrity lifestyle, he started getting in trouble first for smaller crimes. Then bigger and bigger ones. By his late teens, he was too deep in gang and drug-running activity to see a way out. He was losing friends to both violence and the prison system.
Little did he know, the entire Manchester Boys operation, of which he was a part, was being monitored by the police. Eventually they caught up with Hermen and at the age of 22, he pled guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin and money laundering.
He was sentenced to six years behind bars, serving three. But those three years, would prove to be some of the most pivotal of his life. He did two things. He started planning a life for himself, gang-free, on the outside, and he started running. A lot.
Dange’s passion for running, and fitness generally, is infectious. So infectious that his weekly ‘open to all’ running club – Made Running – has 200-300 weekly participants and an overall community of around 3000. But what has become a cult phenomenon started out as a pragmatic solution to the challenges he was facing both in and out of prison.
“The fitness community has kept me busy, and by staying busy, there’s less of a chance of me reoffending,” he says. “And it’s the same with the business – the busier you are, the less chance you’ve got to reoffend.”
Dange understands that his story is sadly not the typical route for young men who end up incarcerated. His career is something he is extremely protective of. When we speak, he is in the middle of dashing from meeting to meeting.
He doesn’t just run Made Running, he has various other projects too, having also worked in the hospitality industry. Fresh out of Strangeways, he even started a removals company with an £800 loan from family. There seems to be no real limit to the Made brand.
Fast forward a few years, and Dange’s influence has brought him to a new collaboration with Club de Padel on Owen Street, at the skyscraper-dense end of Deansgate developers are calling New Jackson.
The sport – which is one of the fastest-growing in the UK – is having a real moment, going from something quite exclusive to seemingly everyone’s new favourite sport. So for Dange, it was a natural collaboration. “Doing a run with Club de Padel, or a city centre run generally, gives people an opportunity in Manchester to actually see what it’s like”.
Dange’s first group runs out of prison were centred around Salford, so this central location is an opportunity to bring in a new crowd. He tries to make his runs personal too. As a United fan he likes running through Old Trafford, and he loves the vibe of running down Deansgate and The Gay Village. And yes, he even enjoys running past Strangeways, as perverse as that might sound. It’s a way to mark how far he’s come.
So what’s the difference between Made Running and the numerous other running clubs that pound Greater Manchester’s pavements on any given weeknight? It clearly has something to do with Dange’s no-nonsense positivity.
The motto of the club is that ‘no-one is left behind’, and in a literal sense, if any one runner gets ahead of the pack, they are told to return to the group. No-one crosses the finish line on their own. He says this sort of tough love helps people reach goals they never thought possible:
“I see people doing 5Ks who never thought they could, people doing marathons who never thought about it before.”
Made Running x Club de Padel meets at Club de Padel every Monday evening from 6.45pm.
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