Final Round , livre ebook

Pitch Publishing Ltd - Jane Couch

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123 pages

English

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The Final Round is the inspirational story of one woman and her fight to be able to box. Growing up in Fleetwood with no career aspirations, Jane Couch's world changed overnight when she watched two American women boxers on TV and knew she'd found her calling. However, at that time, women weren't allowed to box in the UK - so Jane had to train under the radar, sparring illegally with men and travelling abroad to fight. She had to prove herself at every turn, but with a country that wouldn't let her do what she loved, she was up against the ropes. But Jane fought back. In 1998 a court of law found the British Board of Boxing Control guilty of discrimination, and she became the first female to be awarded a UK licence to box. Far from being celebrated, she was ridiculed and labelled a 'freak show', the subject of TV chat-show debates. Having paved the way for women to box, Jane found herself hung out to dry by the male-dominated boxing establishment. Her story is one of passion, guts and determination.

Sujets

Boxing

Xian de Boxing

Informations

Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	09 septembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785316111
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2019
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Jane Couch with Abi Smith, 2019
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 978-1-78531-562-6
eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-611-1
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Ebook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Foreword by Ricky Hatton
Prologue: My funeral
1. Hey Mickey!
2. Police, punch-ups and prison
3. The farm
4. The Fleetwood Assassin
5. A fighter not a quitter
6. Taking the devil to court
7. Winning the battle but losing the war
8. Fighting on British soil
9. Royal encounters
10. And now I ll do what s best for me
Epilogue: The legacy
Acknowledgements
Dedication: To Sara Leslie and Dinah Rose QC
Foreword
T HERE aren t many people in the world who I respect and admire as much as my mate Jane. I have known her for many, many years and we became good friends in a world where she wasn t welcomed. And that s putting it nicely!
I was able to fight in the ring as soon as I made the decision I wanted to; Jane had to fight to be allowed to box. I have known a fair few boxers over the years and met a lot of fighters but Jane is both. Five times world champion? That took training, hard graft, dedication and commitment. But away from the ring she was a fighter too.
Fighting for her right to box.
Fighting for her right to box as a woman.
Fighting for her right to box as a woman in a man s world.
And I m really proud of her. I m proud of everything she has achieved in the boxing ring, I am proud that she stood up and took on the fight with this powerful establishment and I m proud to call her one of my best mates.
It s down to her determination and grit and willpower that not only made her a great fighter but also made her a pioneer for women s boxing. There are several talented female boxers in Britain today that are doing us all proud. I just hope they realise they wouldn t be where they are today doing the sport they love if it wasn t for the hard work and dedication Jane put in not that long ago. She paved the way for women to be free to box in this country without fear of discrimination or abuse. No one else took on that fight and I honestly believe if it wasn t for Jane, women s boxing wouldn t be the celebrated sport it is today.
And well done for finally writing a book about it all. It s about time people see you for what you are: a history-maker, a phenomenally talented boxer, a cheeky, doggedly determined friend with a heart of gold. Someone to be celebrated.
Ricky Hatton
Prologue
My funeral
It takes courage to live through suffering; and it takes honesty to observe it.
C.S. Lewis
T HE sun streamed in through the kitchen window but I barely registered it as I sat there, at the table, broken.
Uncontrollable shaking had taken over my whole body. I could feel every part of me shuddering, shivering, trembling in a frenzied way and I had no power to make it stop. I looked down at my hands and saw the shaking there too, my hands which had been my power force, my fight, now just a feeble, useless extension of my body that I couldn t control.
This was as bad as it ever was and I could see it in Kim s face as she sat opposite, her hands - steady and still - clasped together on the kitchen table. Her head was tilted to one side as she scrutinised me. She had let herself in the house earlier that morning. I had listened as she called out my name but I didn t have the strength to answer. I had summoned up all my willpower to get out of bed, to make it downstairs and now I was sitting at the table, a mug of hot tea in front of me, and Kim, one of my closest friends, staring at me like I was some sort of freak show, an exhibit. The worry in her eyes gave her away. These past few weeks, everything had gotten worse, everything was an effort. I hated leaving the house, I didn t want to see anybody or talk to anybody. Leaving the house meant going out to the unknown and I would sometimes get to the front door before I would feel my breath start to quicken and in an instant I would be having a panic attack, right there in the hallway, all from the thought of opening my front door. That feeling of panic, the ringing in my ears, the cold sweat, the sense of dread it would be like a heavy weight pumping through me, filling every part of my body. And then the tears would start. And once that tearful feeling took over, I would be sobbing for the rest of day.
Just getting myself dressed, getting myself out of bed, was an effort. Sometimes the effort became too much and I would stay in bed all day, just lying there, just I don t know what I was doing really. Just breathing I suppose. Listening, breathing, surviving.
It wasn t like I could rest or sleep as I lay there. Sleeping was a joke; sleeping at night was just a distant memory to me now. I must have been able to sleep once. Of course I did; I would sleep like a baby after the training, after the fights, my body giving in to the sheer physical exhaustion. But now it was my mind controlling me and I was powerless to stop it. I would start each night thinking it would be different, thinking this was the night I would get a good rest. And then I would feel my teeth start to chatter, so I would grind them together, hard and forcefully, to make them stop, make them still. But my jaw would ache then and the tension would move down to my neck and my shoulders and I would toss and turn to try to get comfortable.
Kim told me to drink some tea. I wanted to, I really did, but I was anxious that my trembling hands would fail me. I felt a loud pulsing in my ear as I sat there, staring into the mug, head bowed because even the effort to lift it seemed too much. She started to speak but I couldn t make out what she was saying at first, the intensity of the pulsing had grown louder and I closed my eyes to try to concentrate on her voice.
You need help you can t carry on like this look at me Jane
We need to go to hospital, Jane let s get you help
I could hear the distress in her voice as she talked; she was afraid. I was afraid. I had no answer to how I was feeling, I just knew I had never felt like this before in my life. So utterly out of control of my own body. I was an athlete, a fighter. I was strong. I was all of those things once, but I couldn t remember what they felt like now. My life had spiralled out of control since I had retired from boxing and the only life I had ever known.
Kim moved off from her chair and knelt down beside me. I had started rubbing myself all over, you know how you do when it is cold? I was rubbing my hands up and down my arms constantly, my legs jiggling up and down at the same time. I wasn t cold, it wasn t cold, it was the bloody middle of summer, but I couldn t stop. Kim made me look at her; she spoke to me. I lifted my head enough to see her lips move.
C mon love, let s go.
I couldn t reply as my mouth had gone all dry, but I nodded. It was time to go. I knew she was right. I felt butterflies in my stomach as I got up. Kim held out her hand to me, to guide me out, but my hands were balled up into fists. The fighting instinct had kicked it. That fight or flight moment, the moment when you have a clarity of mind. Can I go? No. I don t need to go. I am safe here, I should just stay here. But I did go. I moved on an autopilot setting that had kicked into gear and I found myself following her out of the door and out into the unknown.
The hospital was only over the road so I didn t have chance to dwell on whether I should be going or not, simply that we were going and Kim was guiding me over the road. And then before I knew it we were inside and sat down together on a line of beigey-coloured plastic chairs in the waiting room. It was a warm morning and I made an effort to look around, to see how many staring eyes would be looking then looking away in embarrassment. But there couldn t have been more than a handful of people around us and no one was interested in a middle-aged woman who didn t look like she had any obvious illness or injury.
The reception area was big and Kim had guided me towards the back wall of the room, next to a table that had a few dog-eared magazines. Not that Woman Home was my cup of tea, but I couldn t stop staring down at the front cover, trying to work out why it said August 2001 on the it 2001? that wasn t now that was years ago wasn t it? My brain was trying to make sense of the date; was it really 2001, was there a mistake what was the year? It was like my brain was trying to make sense of something so silly, so trivial and yet it couldn t get past it.
Kim was scribbling next to me on a clipboard; she was filling out my details. It won t be long now , I heard her say. The doctor won t be long. I know people often say there is a distinctive smell to hospitals - the medicinal smell, the antiseptic smell, the smell of fear - but I don t think I could tell you what I smelt that day. My senses were switched off, they didn t care about my surroundings. I had lost all sense of attention and contemplation. I felt empty. And this emptiness, this nothingness, had come from being part of the only thing I had ever wanted: to box, to be a boxer.
All those years, I had been told what to do, where to go, when to get up. I hadn t earnt much money from it. And then you re done and the