BOXING. CLEVER. LJMU women win gold on their first attempt

Liverpool John Moores University women became BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) boxing champions in January. They’d never entered a women’s team before. Olivia Franks gets to grips with the students’ story.

Collecting one gold and three silvers across one weekend, Liverpool John Moores University clinched the overall women’s title, while the men’s title was won by Northumbria.

One silver was won by a wildcard entry and another by a boxer in her first fight for two years.

From only two female student boxers in 2023 to over 40 this year, the growth of women’s boxing at LJMU has been astronomical.

Tilly Nicholson, a third-year student studying media, culture and communications, says: “We were the first females to ever go, so to go and then win as our first women’s team that was a big achievement for us.”

“When I joined three years ago it was me and one other girl and that was it.

“The next year I thought right I’m going to get onto the committee and get more girls involved.”

The communications officer continues: “that was my mission – to be a friendly face for more girls to get involved and to not to make it separate between women’s boxing and men’s boxing. We’ve kept it as one community.”

“Now, some of the sessions that we go to over half of the class are girls, so we’ve really built a community and I’m really proud of what we’ve done there.” 

Some students had been inspired by fight nights and wanted to continue their boxing journey, whereas others like the fitness aspect.

Bethan Helyer, welfare officer and BUCS silver medallist, loves the people.

“It’s just brought me out of my shell quite a lot and I’ve made new friends.

“I think outside of boxing I’m a very shy person and then at boxing I just have this whole alter ego.”

Travelling down to Portsmouth for the BUCS Championship, LJMU took their largest ever team of nine boxers but day one did not go as planned.

Vice Club Captain Zain Dar says: “After the first day we were all down because we had one win and three losses. It was not a great day for all of us.”

Thankfully, the team’s fortunes soon changed.

Civil Engineering student Dar continues: “The second day, we had Beth and Keira both fight. They both won, so second day we were on a very big high and then on the third day we had four of us in the final.”

The finals were silver tinted – Kiera Whitlock (top photo) in the U57kg and Bethan Helyer in the U67.5kg picked up second places.

Dar, who has been boxing since he was 14-years-old, lauds Whitlock for returning to the ring.

He says: “She hasn’t fought in two years – she hasn’t boxed or anything and we convinced her to come back and start training, and she got silver! She had three fights over the weekend and then in the final she fought a five-times champion!”

With less than two years of boxing under her belt, Helyer was LJMU’s wildcard entry and brought home a silver medal.

The Quantity Surveying student’s bout was even picked up by Instagrammer Smithy Boxing TV and posted online – it one of the UK’s largest amateur boxing Instagrams with 10,000+ followers.

Helyer remarks: “It was my first amateur fight, and it was such a big crowd and a big deal! That’s when everyone kept saying oh my god, they posted your fight, oh my god!”

Dar himself won gold in the men’s U57.5kg category over Oscar Cole from Portsmouth University, making him a two-time BUCS champion.

Held at the Ravelin Sports Centre in Portsmouth, the championship saw over 100 bouts take place across January 23-25.

Sean Cope rounded up the medal tally for LJMU with silver in the men’s U70kg category, losing to University of Liverpool boxer Freddie Brooks.

The University of Liverpool followed closely behind their cross-town rivals with a third-place finish in the women’s competition, and even joined LJMU in the stands to support Dar in his final against a hometown favourite.

Nicholson says: “We all supported each other whereas in Liverpool it’s kind of Uni of versus John Moores. Once we were out of the city, we all came together as one to support each other which was really nice to see.”

“You might have just been punching them in the face but straight after you’re hugging them well done, like it’s all really good energy.”

The team train three times a week, with the committee running Monday night trainings themselves.

Dar says: “Those sessions, we try to make enjoyable and reassure them that they’re doing good. You’re not going to get great instantly, it’s about slowly, slowly getting better.

Nicholson adds: “We found that the girls need their confidence building up because sometimes they feel a bit silly starting out or they feel like ‘I shouldn’t be here’ whereas the boys are really confident they’re like ‘I know what I’m doing’, so they need bringing down!”

To illustrate that fact, Helyer admits she was very nervous about taking up the wild card place at BUCS but the masters student is glad she decided to stick with it.

The fourth year says: “If you said this to me in the first year of uni, I would have never have guessed it, but it’s honestly been the best. I wouldn’t change it for anything now!”