Bunce Diary: Whatever happened to the 19 dreamers from the inaugural Female National Championships?
By Steve Bunce
BACK when there was not one girl from British novice boxing ok to be despatched to a World or European championship, a tiny group of renegades gathered one weekend.
It was May 2003 and the inaugural Female National Boxing Championships occurred at the Metropolitan Police College, in Hendon, north London. It was like a secret occasion and to date it has escaped all data. You had to be there.
A complete of 19 dreamers arrived that weekend and no one had a clue what to count on. They lined up to weigh-in and checked out one another nervously. Some had by no means boxed, others had fought a few occasions. One or two had fought maybe six or seven occasions; they had been a real mixture of unknowns. They had been inheriting completely nothing.
The line-up included an armed response policewoman from (*19*) known as Tiffany Lynch. There was a girl who gave out change at an amusement arcade on Paignton pier known as Kristine Shergold. There was a mum known as Tamasin Mallia who had fought and misplaced thrice earlier than arriving in Hendon. They had been all there dreaming of one thing.
Shergold was the veteran in Hendon. She had fought 9 occasions, and she or he was certainly one of the 20 ladies who had been invited to Crystal Palace, the place GB boxing was based mostly, in 2001 to participate in a coaching session. Now, this session has turn out to be a factor of superb delusion in boxing. Some folks doubt it existed, nevertheless it did, Shergold was there, and she or he has testimony. She instructed me about it at Hendon on the Saturday afternoon.
The day was formally an “assessment” session to see if any of the invited ladies had been ok to compete at the first version of the Women’s World Amateur Championship in America later that 12 months. It was a brutal cattle market, a uncooked day with no camouflage for the uncovered and inexperienced boxers. It was definitely dealt with incorrectly. The girl carried out in entrance of an unimpressed pack of males, led by Olympic coach, Ian Irwin. There was actually no want for the public exercise; it was clear the ladies in 2001 weren’t prepared.
“We were asked to train to see if any of us were good enough to go to the first Women’s World Championships in America, but the feedback wasn’t very good, and it was obvious that nobody there thought that any of us could box,” Shergold instructed me. Ouch.
Shergold misplaced to Rhiannon Dixon on factors in her fifteenth professional battle in 2022; she was 41 on the evening in Leeds and has not fought since.
In 2002, when the ladies’s Worlds had been in Turkey, there was no “assessment” day. As a direct comparability, England, Scotland and Wales determined to not ship any boxers to the first version of the males’s World Championships in Havana in 1974. They weren’t ok, was the savage evaluation. It was most likely proper.
Back in the Hendon ring, there was some controversy after Friday’s semi-finals. Some of the ladies complained that the fights had been stopped too early.
“This is a full contact sport and I expect to get hit and hurt in there and when it was stopped, I couldn’t believe it,” stated Rachael Prendergast. “I was not hurt, not even a bit.”
Prendergast was having her first battle at 30 and was crushed in a single spherical by Nichola Owens. It was all new, particularly for many referees. Owens beat Heather Mackie in the featherweight ultimate.
In the very first bout, Jenny Dowell had crushed Mallia. I took down superb particulars again then – you had to get all the pieces in your pad as a result of there have been far fewer methods to verify on details and figures and the ages of the boxers. Dowell was a hairdresser and would lose the bantamweight ultimate on countback to Tina O’Dell, who boxed for Frank O’Sullivan’s membership, Birmingham City Police. O’Dell was a part of England Boxing for a time, certainly one of the pathway coaches. She nonetheless runs a health club in Birmingham now.
It was one other robust loss for Mallia and that meant she nonetheless had yet another laborious activity to end. She instructed me about it: “I have to call my five-year-old son, Tommy, and tell him that I’ve lost again. I would never let him see me fight and it is hard enough making the call.” Mallia went on and have become a boxing decide and educated novice fighters.
I’m starting to surprise if there’s a easy documentary to be made about the nineteen dreamers who confirmed up in Hendon chasing one thing. We love pioneers in any sport and people ladies had been actual pioneers. It would possibly simply work, and so they had backstories. This can be a few years earlier than Nicola Adams and Amanda Coulson had been despatched to occasions in Europe. This occasion at Hendon is sort of a misplaced piece of archive; the BBC filmed a few of it, so it’s on the market someplace.
Lynch, the armed policewoman, solely began boxing when the police automobile she was travelling in hit a tree throughout an armed and high-speed chase. I’m not inventing this, by the manner. She was instructed that she could be out of motion for 18 months with a broken leg; she turned to boxing and was in the ring inside a 12 months. She misplaced in the welterweight ultimate however was planning on going to the World Police and Fire Officer Games in Barcelona that summer season. She stays a strong participant in the police power.
From March 4-11, 4 ladies from the GB Boxing machine will journey to Italy for the second Olympic qualifier. Two ladies, Charley Davison and Rosie Eccles have already certified for Paris. Meanwhile, someplace in Britain, a gaggle of renegade ladies and forgotten fighters can be keeping track of their progress. They made that passage attainable, and I ponder the place all of them are actually?
