CALISTA PACKS A BIG PUNCH IN FUNDRAISER FOR GRANDAD DENNIS
Student set for night of women’s boxing
A STUDENT will be making her debut in the boxing ring tonight in memory of her late grandfather.
Calista Mccready is joining 15 other women who will be fighting to raise money for various causes.
The doors at Burslem’s FAN boxing academy will open at 7pm for eight scheduled fights.
Calista, a 21-year-old criminology and criminal justice student at the University of Leeds, has been boxing for the last three years, but has never fought an opponent competitively.
She will now be taking that step in memory of her grandad Dennis Brereton, who died from cancer in August aged 82.
Mr Brereton joined the RAF in 1973 and served for around five years. This has inspired Calista to raise money for armed forces charity, SSAFA.
The part-time restaurant worker, from Blurton, said: “I’ve been boxing training for around three years, so it isn’t anything new.
“I never thought I was going to get into the ring, but this seemed like a great opportunity to start.
“This is for fun and a good cause. The money raised from bar sales and the raffle will go to New Era domestic violence for Stoke-on-trent and Staffordshire.”
The SSAFA fundraising cause is close to her heart.
“My grandad was in the RAF for a few years and it was always something he was proud of,” said Calista.
“When I was speaking to him, it’s something he always went back to. Not many raise money for SSAFA. They bought him things to help him to walk and gave him help so he could still keep in touch.
“We didn’t speak for around 10 years after I was born, but we recently became a lot closer. That’s why it made his death a lot harder to deal with because we were making up for lost time. It was upsetting.
“I was able to have that bond with someone where I could speak freely and then it was gone.
“Around the time, a lot of people were supportive. My dad was really supportive with being able to speak about different things so we could remember him.
“We still see his wife a lot and keep his memory going. The support made it easier to be able to function.
“I’ve got a load of things going on, so boxing is one of the things where I could have an hour out every couple of days and focus on that. It helps you feel so much better. It helped me during that time.”
The match will consist of three 90-second rounds.
In preparation, Calista has been doing extra training with her sister Katie and has thanked her trainers Marie and Craig for their support.
She added: “This night will be good to show what women have and we can fight as well as men and it can be entertaining.”