Dudley duo are good as gold in Denmark

Dudley's Paige Goodyear was as good as gold after going all of the way in her first international competition last weekend.

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The teenager from Wren's Nest took the top medal at 52kg in Denmark, which staged the invitational Haslev Box Cup, writes Craig Birch.

Goodyear formed part of a FLAG (Fight Like A Girl) squad, with five joining up as a group for the trip. It was organised by coach Mick Maguire, from the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham.

The 15-year-old, from the Brooklands home gym in Woodsetton run by former professional Darren McDermott, is already an ABA Schools national champion.

She added gold to that accolade in her first tournament overseas, winning both bouts at her weight and the second by stoppage.

She's now competed 14 times, losing on just four occasions, and is growing in stature at a tender age, keeping McDermott busy leading her progress.

He said: "Paige was a kickboxer when she first came to me, but she trains like a demon so has taken the change in her stride.

"I wasn't really interested in training girls, if I'm honest, but I saw something in her that I wanted to work with.

"It can be difficult to get her bouts, so we stuck her in every tournament going and now we're looking at events in Europe as well.

"She wants to fight more than the boys! She's strong and has got a lot of natural aggression and that's getting results for her.

"The FLAG squad has been good, too, outside of competition they go all over for the country for sparring and have met up with clubs in London, Manchester and Portsmouth.

"Paige got to captain the side in Denmark and that's great experience if she gets the call to fight for England, which I'm confident will happen in the future."

There's now three West Midlands champions vests on the wall of fame at Brooklands in Goodyear, England Elite area titlist Mitchell Stevens, Niall Felton and Harry Conlan.

Felton's journey ended on a silly shot in the third round of his England Junior Development Championship national semi-final against Lee Rooney.

It came at 40kg in Class A, for boxers born in 2000, with stable-mate Conlan outpointed on a split decision to Hull Saints' Mostafa Afzali at 54kg in Class B (1999).

Darren Elwell and Jay Hodgkiss worked the corner for them, with McDermott in Denmark where he bumped into some old friends.

Richard Ghent was only 14 when he first laced on a glove for Priory Park Boxing Club, with McDermott leading him in with both later to turn pro.

Now, 14 years later, they were reunited with Ghent still involved at the Priory, leading Jerry Mongan to another one of the gold medals.

The 28-year-old and Jerry's older brother Michael, the latter from a travelling family, took the England Schools champion and European bronze medallist on the trip.

Mongan, 15, is still getting accustomed to boxing at a higher weight but seemed like his old self here, defeating Ireland's Byran Barrett unanimously.

They were the only two entrants at 63kg, so their meeting became a straight shoot-out for gold that Mongan won comfortably.

Ghent said: "Jerry is a strong lad but maybe he's been over-dependant on that, at times, and negated some of his boxing.

"It was good to see him get back to showing his skills, rather than loading up and looking to throw the big bombs all of the time.

"He was in total control, boxed really well and looked like his confidence was coming back, too. This was supposed to make him feel special.

"Jerry went to Hungary for the Europeans, so he knows what it's about. This was to get him in that sort of mindset again.

"It was a great experience for us all and I would really recommend it to other clubs. It was great to see 'Macca' again and the girls did really well. They stole the show, by rights."

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