Free boxing classes for Moray girls has proved to be a knockout success at Elgin Boxing Club
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INSPIRED by Moray’s female Commonwealth Games fighter, teenage girls are taking up free classes at Elgin Boxing Club.
The club received funding by the Boxing Scotland governing body and the sportscotland national agency for sport in an effort to attract more girls to the boxing ring.
Based at Brodie Place in Elgin, EBC has produced a series of Scottish amateur champs including Megan Gordon, the first girl to represent Scotland in a Commonwealth competition when she won bronze at the Youth Games, before going on to fight for her country at the last Commonwealth Games in Australia.
Megan’s father Paul is head coach at the club and explained how the opportunity came to run free classes for girls aged between 11 and 17.
“They wanted to increase the participation of females in the sport,” he said. “As we have already ran a female-only session for the past two years we had a good history of this so was successful in being selected.
“What we wanted to get was a different take on it, so what we did was bring in girls around the age of 11 or 12 up to 17.
“We started at the end of October and got 16 coming along to the first session.
“Sometimes you get a big group at first and after one or two weeks it dwindles down. But here the girls have stuck with it all the way through, which is fantastic.
“The enthusiasm and ability to learn the skills by the girls have impressed both myself and coach Iain Goldie. So much so, that last week after only five sessions we brought in some of our under-18 boxers for the girls to try some of their skills in the ring.
“In the end we are hoping to produce more Scottish female champions from Moray. I believe several from this class could do that.”
Elgin BC boxers were preparing for the Scottish open championships in March when Covid-19 brought everything to a standstill.
Gordon continued to do online sessions, and when rules were relaxed he started doing outdoor classes.
“We are now doing seven days a week over a total of 11 classes,” he said.
See Elgin Boxing Club’s Facebook for more details.
