Blog: Action woman

Box at the Rocks

With the visit to North Cyprus of two British boxers and the chance to spar with them, it would have been a shame not to take them up on the offer, so I decided to try my hand at a spot of boxing.
Mark Hobson and Dale Robinson arrived in Cyprus last weekend to spend five days training for their forthcoming fights in the UK.
Chris Aston, trainer and manager for the two fighters explained: “It’s a great opportunity to train in the warmer weather, Dale particularly has to get his weight down and he will be able to shed pounds more quickly with this sort of temperature.�
Dale Robinson will be fighting on April 13 in Manchester for the British Flyweight title.
“When you try for a world title, which I lost by one point, you automatically relinquish your other titles, so I am now fighting to win it back.� Dale explained.
Their training schedule looked a bit tough for me to join, five mile runs, with intermittent sprints, endless skipping, punching pads and then sparring for an hour or so, had me worried about black eyes and fat lips. Dale may only be 1.65m and 50 kgs but he looked pretty tough, so I left it for his sparring partners to take the punches.
Daniel Dries, 19, and Abdul Mghrbea, 30 and originally from Syria, had travelled with Dale for that sole purpose, they take in turns in the ring, whilst Dale fights through the full 12 rounds, hopefully making it tougher than the one opponent he will face next month.
Mark Hobson hadn’t been under as much pressure during his stay here, since his fight had just been put back a month before he left to come out here.
“Now that the fight date has changed I can take it a bit easier this week,� Mark said.
So I decided to get in the ring with him, especially since I had some background knowledge that he had been out pretty late the night before!
I was lent a pair of gloves and a head guard - wasn’t so sure about the offer of a gum shield - climbed through the ropes and into the ring. Mark is 1.95m and fights at Cruiserweight level, which I had been informed is a weight class between heavyweight and light heavyweight, meaning his fight weight will need to be under 90 kg – at the moment though he’s closer to 95kg. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea! In actual fact Mark very charmingly let me thrown a few puny punches at him and judging by the fact he didn’t flinch or even try to dodge them, can only imagine that he didn’t feel a thing! When it came time for Mark to go a few rounds with his sparring partner, Nathan Joseph, you can see why! Boxing is a punishing sport, even with headgear on punches to the head can have them reeling, body blows have no protection from your opponent’s glove, when they know what they’re doing.
I decided to try out the skipping instead and joined young Daniel who was warming up by the ringside, this I can do after a fashion, although a few minutes was enough – Daniel had already been going for about 20 minutes before I started – and what’s will all that fancy cross over stuff anyway!

The trip including accommodation and meals for the two boxers, two trainers, three sparring partners and a minder, was financed by Stuart Green of Simogen Development Ltd, the Mayor of Lefkosa, Cemal Bulutoğluları and the Rocks Hotel.
Last year a visit by Huddersfield Town, which had been organised by Mr Green, was cancelled at the last minute when Greek Cypriot intervention halted it. On this occasion, the visit by Mark Hobson and Dale Robinson was kept under raps until the last minute and judging by the interest it has generated will hopefully mean further sporting visits may follow.

by Claire on 14:33 on 8th May 2007