'We have a long way to go, but women's boxing is getting there'

Lauren Price, Natasha Jonas and Cindy Ngamba are steeled for tomorrow's all-female bill at the Royal Albert Hall. Donald McRae hears their stories

- Donald McRae

It's maddening and sad to think that, not so long ago, women were banned from being fighters," says Lauren Price as she prepares to face Natasha Jonas in a fascinating world welterweight title unification bout that headlines tomorrow's all-female bill at the Royal Albert Hall. But, first, the Olympic gold medallist and world champion pauses to remember those who preceded her.

In August 1998, the British Boxing Board of Control were taken to court by Jane Couch, a professional fighter who had been forced abroad because women's boxing was banned in her country. Bernard Buckley, the board's solicitor, told the judge that "many women suffer from premenstrual tension which makes them more emotional, labile and accident-prone. They are too fragile to box and bruise easily."

The barrister Dinah Rose demolished the boxing authorities' ridiculous argument and Couch became Britain's first licensed professional female boxer. "It shows how far we've come and we owe it to trailblazers like Jane," Price says.

Her friend and sparring partner Cindy Ngamba, who won a historic first medal for the Refugee Team at the Paris Olympics last summer, was born in Cameroon three weeks after Couch's landmark victory. "I've watched some videos of Jane's fights and how the hell do people think that she is weak?" Ngamba asks. "No matter how many bruises she had, she just kept going.

"Look where we are now - with female fighters in different weight categories, from different countries, with different styles. They have the typical mindset of a boxer who is hungry and not afraid in the ring."