Nicola Connolly’s first punch in the face came as a shock.
Before she signed up for a fight, the busy mum-of-two had no experience of boxing and spent little time on fitness.
Her eyes watered as she reeled from the first of many blows she would take during eight weeks of training for a white collar boxing match.
Nicola, 43, from Aberdour, sustained several bleeding noses and black eyes sparring.
She says: “Sometimes I wondered ‘am I brave or am I stupid?’
“The experience was one of the hardest things I have ever done but also one of the most rewarding.”
Nicola, a senior buyer for a farming technology company in Inverkeithing, took up the challenge after seeing adverts on Facebook.
Boxing for non-boxers
White collar boxing matches are between people – typically white collar workers – not normally involved in the sport.
Nicola’s match in Dunfermline and training in Kirkcaldy were with Ultra White Collar Boxing, which holds events across the UK.
She says: “I went into it a bit naively, thinking it’s all people that have never boxed before, it can’t be that intense.
“Boy was I wrong!”
Nicola arrived at Edge Gym in Kirkcaldy for her first evening of training. Her fellow boxers included tradesmen, lab technicians and ex-military.
She says: “I looked around and thought ‘what have I done?'”
Nicola’s intense training regime
The level of training and dedication required quickly became apparent.
“It was a shock to the system,” says Nicola.
“Just going to the gym is nothing compared to what you do for boxing training.
“People dropped out after the first day.”
For the first three or four weeks Nicola and her fellow boxers focussed on fitness and shadow boxing.
She says: “We were training together twice a week but I also tried to get to as many other classes as well to get in as much practice and fitness as possible.
Taking the first punch
“When I realised the fitness levels involved I knew I needed to up my game.”
Then the sparring began. And the boxing became real.
“That first punch in the nose when it explodes, it makes your eyes water,” says Nicola. “It’s a shock.
As Nicola was among only three women in the group she often sparred with the men – which she saw as an advantage in preparing her for the ring.
She says: “After you get punched in the face by a man you think, alright, I can take a punch from a girl.
“And I think because we were all inexperienced nobody knew how to hold back and the boys just hit how they hit.
Black eyes and bursts noses
“So I had a few black eyes, quite a few burst noses, but luckily nothing broken!”
That meant Nicola turning up to work and going about her daily life sporting a few shiners.
“Everyone just thought I was nuts!” she says.
And Nicola wondered the same of herself at times.
But she says: “Once I set my mind to something I’m determined not to back out.”
Nicola learned who her opponent would be only a few days before her white collar boxing tie.
Lighter than the two other women in her training group, she was paired with a woman from another gym, Gillian Green.
“I found out that she’d done this event four or five times before, so I was panicking,” she says.
“The other girls, I knew what they were like, I’d sparred against one of them.”
Come the big night, husband Chris and some friends and colleagues joined an audience of hundreds at Glen Pavilion to cheer Nicola on.
As Ultra White Collar Boxing matches are for over-18s only, Nicola’s children Dylan, 11, and Skye, 8, were unable to go.
But they’d seen her sparring, accompanying her to training sometimes.
Like in a professional boxing match, the competitors were paraded before their bouts.
“The ring walkout was the worst bit,” says Nicola. “It was terrifying just seeing everybody.”
Stepping into the ring
Then it was her turn to step into the ring. The bell rang and the fight began.
“In the first round she [Gillian] caught me once and the adrenaline kicked in,” she recalls.
Just 21 seconds in, the referee stopped the match and declared Nicola the victor.
“It was a bit of an anti-climax that it was over so quickly,” Gillian admits, “but a win’s a win!”
Already she is considering signing up for the next Fife event in November.
She says: “I am so proud of myself for sticking it out even after the bloody noses and sore muscles.”
Nicola raised £2,685 for lone parent family charity Fife Gingerbread’s Day2Play campaign.
What is white collar boxing?
White collar boxing originated in New York in the 1980s when a gym began organising bouts for his professional or ‘white collar’ members.
Famous participants have included Ricky Gervais, Donny Osmond and influencers KSI and Logan Paul.
Conversation