Bradford College

Boxing Academy Becomes ‘High Performance Boxing Centre’

Bradford Police & College Boxing Academy has been selected to become a designated High Performance Boxing Centre for aspiring boxers aged 16-19 years by the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABAE) and England Colleges Amateur Boxing Association (ECABA) (older boxers up to 21-years-old may be accepted onto the programme, subject to meeting academic and boxing criteria)

Only six colleges in the country have been chosen by the (ABAE) and (ECABA) to become a designated High Performance Boxing Centre, including Filton College; City College Brighton and Hove; The Priory School in Orpington; South Leicestershire College and Bradford College.

The colleges will offer the opportunity for elite and aspiring boxers to train fulltime whist gaining educational qualifications at the same time. A string of successful male and female boxers have emerged from the Bradford College Boxing Academy – one of the leading players in boxing education.

Bradford College's Women's Boxing Programme has also been recognised as part of the London 2012 Inspire Programme. The Inspire programme recognises innovative and exceptional projects that are directly inspired by the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Bradford Boxing Development Officer, Paul Porter has been instrumental in seeing the Bradford Police and College Boxing Academy go from strength to strength.  Paul, an amateur boxer for ten years for Enfield Amateur Boxing Club, came to Bradford College from the Amateur Boxing Association of England two year ago to set up the Boxing Academy, which was supported by the Police Community Clubs of Great Britain, the local police and Bradford Council’s B Active campaign.

Paul reflected: “We didn’t even have a pair of gloves when I first joined the College. Now we’ve got the Boxing Academy and we host a lot of national events in conjunction with the Amateur Boxing Association, where potential Olympic class boxers are training. We have an extremely talented coaching set-up led by Mally MacIver (Head Coach) and Kevin Smith (former Scotland National Team Coach and now running our AASE Programme).

The launching of the high performance colleges is part of the Advanced Apprenticeships in Sporting Excellence (AASE) programme.   The AASE is a government supported and funded initiative implemented and developed by the ABAE's partners such as Skills Active.

Each high performance centre has a full time coach leading the programme who will work closely with local boxers and their club coaches to help further develop each boxer to reach their full potential.

Paul concluded: “Any boxer that joins our Academy can fulfil their true potential, with the opportunity through Bradford College to become an international class boxer."