Maverick Stars Trust boxing project five – Fight Like A Girl coaches
With the need to attract more female coaches a priority both at national and regional level, a project in the Midlands is helping to doing its bit – with £3,000 of funding from the Maverick Stars Trust.
How Fight Like A Girl started
The Fight Like A Girl (FLAG) team was first set up in 2016 and meets once a month.
It is administered by Aston ABC’s lead coach John Homer and exists to provide opportunities for female boxers across the Midlands area.
Since its inception, the team has grown significantly and gone from strength to strength, with up to 40 female boxers regularly attending the monthly gathering.
The boxers have been able to access coaching and sparring opportunities and it has proven to be very successful, with a number of or members having won domestic and International honours.
Training more female coaches
The natural progression has then been to encourage more female coaches into the squad system.
With the help of The Maverick Stars Trust, who provided the funding to make it happen, 10 new FLAG coaches have now been successfully trained up as part of that drive.
The prospective coaches all attended and passed the England Boxing level 1 Coaching Course at Tamworth Boxing Club in July 2019, helped by the two already-qualified coaches in attendance.
Inspiring the next generation
Kat Stanford of Tamworth ABC and Louise Vidor of Brightstar Boxing Academy both gave up their time to help to push the programme along.
Vidor, a Level 2 Coach, is one of the success stories for the FLAG initiative with them also having funded her attendance and completion of the Level 2 Coaching Course qualification recently.
She said: “It was fantastic to be involved in the delivery of this course and I was delighted to see so many female coaches in attendance.
“Female coaching participation is growing all the time and I really welcome the effort and support that has enabled the FLAG programme to keep going and to offer opportunities like this.”
Welcome support from Maverick Stars Trust
The coaches who successfully gained their Level 1 qualifications are: Elaine Homer (Aston), Claire McDermott (Brooklands), Claire Salisbury (Jewellery Quarter), Jade Collett (Wednesbury), Sophie Morton (Droitwich), Georgie Belt (Tamworth), Paige Goodyear (Brooklands), Ileana Ingram (Aston), Jo Gavin (Anderson’s), Wendy Hurst (Warley).
Homer said: “Maverick Stars were fantastic from the start and loved the idea from the outset.
“The charitable foundation were as good as there word as well, with a very welcome grant of £3,000 towards the project being very gratefully received.”
Join up with the Fight Like A Girl team
To find out more call John Homer on 07973 639815 or email astonabc@blueyonder.co.uk
More on the Maverick Stars Trust
You can read more about the Maverick Stars Trust and their project alongside England Boxing here.
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