If you want to understand what really animates East Midlands boxing, don’t gaze at the sweating youth with his arms raised in the ring. Look instead to the edges, to the periphery  to Clare Lynch, Regional Secretary, the quietly relentless presence with biro in hand, clipboard battered to the point of martyrdom, surviving on caffeine and, I suspects, sheer will. A lifelong devotee of boxing, and  unusually in this sport someone who loves it without needing to conquer it.

Boxing, for Clare, is not pastime or a hobby It is  her atmosphere  the air she has inhaled since childhood. While other children were strangling “Three Blind Mice” out of recorders, Clare was learning the austere art of hand wrapping rules, absorbing the fundamental law of the boxing : when the bell rings, you concentrate.

She has never laced up gloves herself  which is, I dare say, part of her genius. Untempted by the narcotic thrill of combat, Clare has focused on the harder, more sustaining task: holding the damned thing together.

What marks Clare out is could be her prodigious work rate or her seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of boxing arcana. And It is that rarest of commodities in sport (and indeed, in public life): she actually cares. About the frozen parents on school chairs in freezing halls; about the anxious, combustible young boxers testing the limits of their bodies and fears; about the coaches who know that boxing is both an education and a punishment, and administer both with fierce affection.

And the East midlands has changed  markedly, unmistakably on Clare’s watch. She will not tell you this herself; her modesty is as much an article of faith as her battered biro. But the facts are there: more fairness, more inclusion, less nonsense. more transparency  a regional squad championed in meetings,  clubs supported, The gyms are now spaces where girls can enter without needing a male passport. Boxers of all backgrounds find a home. Officials, once sent to the to the boarder lands of our region now find themselves in thier own city saving clubs money, the same officials now conduct themselves with the dignity the sport deserves. Were there belts handed out for governance, Clare would be there at midnight, split-lipped, grinning, belt raised above her head — and quite possibly plotting what still needs fixing.

Boxing, in its essence, is the great equaliser. The gloves are indifferent to your postcode, your bank balance, your accent. The ring is the most merciless and most honest adjudicator we have. And progress, that ever-delayed project of human hope, does not materialise out of nothing. It arrives because of people like Clare  like the volunteers, administrators, the indispensable people who ensure the entire contraption doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own chaos.

So if you glimpse Clare at the side of the ring, pen dead, clipboard exhausted, slipping into the show venue at some obscene hour — know this: she’s while she is  part of the sport. She’s also part of the reason the sport still survives, and occasionally, astonishingly, redeems itself.

Clare Lynch may still be chasing the perfect three-round war. But the truth is, she’s already won a far rarer prize: the admiration and gratitude of a community she has helped hold together, round after bruising round.

I know Clare will hate me for saying  nice things about her, she rather just carry on working on all our behalf unsung and celebrated and unnoticed. 
So, on behalf of the clubs and officials I will sing your praises, celebrate you and note your valiant efforts.