It had the noise of a festival, the fizz of a title fight, and just enough sunshine to keep the sky from interrupting. The 2025 East Midlands End of Season Show wasn’t so much a boxing event as it was a statement, a declaration, that in this corner of England, the heart of amateur boxing still thumps with chaos, pride, and unashamed glamour.

Forty-three bouts thundered their way across two rings. The air: sharp with resin, the crowd: fierce with loyalty, the boxers: lit with nerves and fire. Over twenty belts were contested, and not one of them was handed over easily. This wasn’t charity. This was a reckoning. This was a region emptying its lungs in defiance of mediocrity.

Supervisors Mark Ritchi and Jamal Khan ran the show with the precision of battlefield captains—clipboard in one hand, logistical firestorms in the other. Around them orbited a constellation of officials who gave the event its weight and authority: yours Truly, Ian Weston, Chris Twell, Gerrad McCann, Selena Fox, Glyn Turner, Tracy Windsor, Simon Reynolds, Adam Palmer, Dovydas Kiselis, Paul Chapman, Pete Robinson, Rob Ritchi, and a supporting cast too numerous to name but impossible to forget. They came, they judged, they kept the whole affair from slipping into mayhem. Without them, it would have been nothing but shouting in a field.

The voices that carried the day belonged to the masters of ceremony, Claire Statham and young Dylan Saleni. Dylan, under the watchful eye and unmistakable cadence of his mentor and surrogate mother Claire, is shaping up well a voice for the future. Corners were introduced with the proper volume, the required pomp, and just the right amount of declarative grandeur. That said, the role of MC is no mere recital. It is performance. It is presence. And if this event is to keep growing in scale and polish, the microphone may soon demand even more command, more showmanship, more bite.

The trophies were handed out with grace and gleam by Keira and Chloe Statham.

And what a field it was. Colliery Lane Holiday Park, offered up with characteristic generosity by Pete Robinson, who waived the fee despite being deep in the peak season. That sort of gesture? That’s boxing. That’s the soul of the thing. The community doesn’t forget it.

Not forgetting to mention the event also raised over £500 for Athena Female boxing charity to take some of it members to Paris and the USA. 

Then came the awards. The glittering full stop at the end of an afternoon of thunder. Clare Lynch, tireless and calm-eyed, was voted Volunteer of the Year. There was a moment, small, unscripted, where you saw her reaction, modest and slightly baffled. That’s how you know she earned it.

boxers of the season weer as follows: Danial Stoican Raj, Isaac Huczman, Ruben Huczman. Ijaaz Lhaled   

Aaron Hill and Bryan Hinkley were each handed a Lifetime Achievement Award, which is a noble way of saying: “We noticed. We remember. We’re grateful.” And for the second year running, the Coach of the Year award went to Chris Slatcher, who accepted it with the kind of exhausted dignity that only coaches know. His athletes have the bruises. He carries their history. Joe Elliott picked up an award for volunteer of they year 

This wasn’t just a show. It was a spectacle, and no other word will quite do. A thank-you is due, not polite, not perfunctory, but thunderous, to the regional officers who organised it. They didn’t just put on an event. They put on a memory.

In the ring, there were punches. Outside it, applause. But what you really heard, if you were listening closely, was this region reminding everyone: we’re still here. Strong. Organised. Glorious.

And next year? Bring more belts.