To see the shift in amateur boxing, don’t look at the ring. Look at the corner. Look, specifically, at Vicky Woodhouse. There she is, gloved not for combat but for command. A coach. A female coach. Still rare. Still strange, to some.

She came through Sileby Boxing Academy. A teenager then. She never fought competitively. No glittering amateur career. No belts on the wall. What she did instead was quieter and harder. She returned. She stayed. She built.

Vicky began coaching at nineteen. She walked back into the gym after life had chewed her up a little. She didn’t come back looking for redemption. She came back because the gym had never really left her. She had learned under proper coaches. People who taught her how to hit, but also how to hold her own. She picked that up and passed it on.

There is a tone in the gym when Vicky is there. It isn’t loud. It doesn’t bark. It just fills the space. Her boxers listen. They move differently when she speaks. There’s a thread between them. Something hard to fake.

She grew up in boxing gyms. Her dad boxed. He coached. She watched. Back then, there were two girls in the gym. Count them: two. These days, there are more. And Vicky is part of the reason. Girls come in and see a woman coaching. That does something to the room. They start sparring different. They hold their heads a little higher.

She’s a founding member of Athena Female Boxing Charity. She coaches now at City of Leicester Lightning. These are facts. They matter.

Her respect for other coaches is never performative. SallyAnn Webb at Priory Park is one she talks about. Calm. Precise. Unshakable. Vicky remembers a moment before a final. Sally said a few words to one of Vicky’s boxers, Atlanta. It wasn’t much. But it hit like a clean shot to the ribs. Landed. Lit her up.

Atlanta went on to win. She ran across the canvas and launched herself into Vicky’s arms. It was, for anyone watching with a working heart, the moment of the season.

Vicky’s aware of the resistance. The sport hasn’t opened its arms to women in the corner. It tolerates them, then tests them, then forgets to say thank you. That’s how it is. That’s what you get. Vicky doesn’t flinch.

She works with the NHS too. Specialist Autism Team. Teenagers. Adults. She helps them find ways to live better. Strategies. Tools. It’s coaching. Just in another ring.

At her gym, discipline is non-negotiable. Respect is expected. Not demanded, but expected. It arrives. It stays. She speaks. They listen. She listens back. A boxer can learn to jab in a day. Learning to respect people takes longer.

She talks about fighters like Nina Hughes, who trains and parents in the same breath. And Jasmina Zapotoczna, who looks like trouble in the ring and kindness out of it. Vicky’s own girls spar the lads and don’t blink. That’s the culture now. Nobody asks if they belong. They answer with their hands.

She wants more women coaching. More women running shows. Not guest spots. Not exceptions. Just presence. She doesn’t frame it as revolution. She frames it as necessary.

She never got her moment in the ring. Never got the walk, the bell, the crowd. So she built a stage instead. You’ll see it. Every time one of her fighters steps through the ropes and looks to the corner. That’s where she stands. Steady. Fierce. Saying: fight your fight. I’ve got the rest.