Boxing: Britain's women fighters winning the battle for respect

First female national championships underline sport's progress in shedding dubious image to gain legitimacy

Exactly 10 years ago, eight women, a referee and about 60 dirty old men packed the banqueting room at a pub in Tooting, south London, at the start of the British women's boxing movement. It was a bad start because fight reports from the afternoon ended up splashed in a soft porn magazine.

On Saturday, 19 women arrived from all over Britain to take part in the inaugural Female National Boxing Championships at the Metropolitan Police College, Hendon, north London, and thankfully there was not a dirty mac in sight.

Back in 1993 Sue Atkins, a gardener from Streatham, formed a governing body for women's boxing and organised the event at the pub, but was horrified when it was hijacked by voyeurs and ridiculed by the boxing press. "People have this image of two dykes with shaved heads slugging it out topless. This is not about that," said a furious Atkins at the time. Sadly, her plea fell on prejudiced ears and the sport's future looked grim.

Five years ago, women and girls were given permission to box as amateurs in Britain and the sport's image started to alter, but there were still prurient muck-rakers and dim-witted misogynists in opposite corners with the combined function of undermining all attempts at respectability. However, on Saturday women's boxing finally moved from the murky minds of pornographers and the tedious macho cries of professional women boxers when the first bell sounded in Hendon.

The line-up included a policewoman from an armed response unit, a cashier from the amusements on Paignton pier in Devon and a care worker from Hertfordshire. Some were mothers. But all that mattered was that they weighed in, passed a medical and competed as amateur boxers.

Not all of them were very good, but they all had a general idea about boxing's rudimentary skills - and that is often more than can be said when novice male boxers enter their first tournaments.

There are no stars yet in female amateur boxing and it is unlikely that any of the competitors at Hendon will get near the medals at next year's third World Championships. The main talking point after Saturday's semi-finals and final revolved around several quick stoppages that angered the losers.

"This is a full contact sport and I expect to get hit and hurt. I was not hurt in there and when it was stopped I couldn't believe it," said Rachael Prendergast, who was having her first fight at 30 and was stopped in round one of a featherweight semi-final by Nichola Owens.

Prendergast, who arrived at boxing after injuring her foot as a kick boxer, was not the only woman to complain about the hasty intervention of the referees, but there are still so few female boxers that many referees lack the necessary experience to judge them during fights. However, it should be pointed out that bouts involving novice men end equally early and result in the same type of complaints.

"It looks easy from here when you are watching it and I can always remember thinking 'do this' or 'do that', but it is very different in there when the other person is moving and throwing punches at you,"' admitted Tamasin Mallia, who lost in the bantamweight semi-final to Jenny Dowell.

It was Mallia's fourth defeat in four fights and she was putting off making the phone call that she dreads at the conclusion of each contest. "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's hard enough making the call."

One of the best female boxers in Britain is Paignton's Kristine Shergold, who has fought nine times, compared to the norm of just one or two contests for most of the other women. She had one walkover on Saturday but next month will fight the sport's only star, Mickila Jones, in Manchester. The pair have met twice, with a win each.

In 2001, Shergold and about 20 other women travelled to Crystal Palace for a bizarre assessment day under the controlling but unconvinced eye of Britain's Olympic coach, Ian Irwin.

"We were asked to train to see if any of us were good enough to go 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 said.

Boxers from Russia, China and Hungary were impressive at those championships. Last year in Turkey, North Korea and India made an instant impact. Next year the first ever team from Cuba will add their weight to the prestigious event and so increase its legitimacy.

There was a suggestion two years ago that women's amateur boxing would be added to the Olympic programme in Beijing in 2008, but that was rejected last year.

However, this summer Leicester's Tiffany Lynch, a member of an armed response unit, will compete at the Police and Fire Officer games in Barcelona. The games boast more competitors than the Olympics and women's boxing will be on the agenda for the first time.

Lynch took up boxing after the police car she was travelling in hit a tree during an armed and high-speed chase. She was told that she would be out of action for 18 months with a badly damaged leg, but she turned to boxing as part of her recovery programme and was in the ring inside a year.

She lost in Saturday's welterweight final, but will be back next year after her appearance in Barcelona. Most of the Hendon competitors will be back next year when the level and the competition will improve and the distance between women's boxing and its soft-porn past will have widened still further.