Why Heart of Portsmouth Boxing Academy’s fantastic five could soon become a super six!

And head coach Q Shillingford has increasing hopes that conveyor belt of prospects produced for the international scene will become a super six in the near future.

It's an impressive batch that have come through an academy only set up just under 13 years ago.

Shillingford began with a vision of creating a gym that was inclusive for all, providing education, a recreational escape and a chance for those pushing to make it onto the elite scene.

And, since opening in 2008, HOP has managed to tick all of those boxes for fighters of all ages.

But it's the continuation to churn out national champions and help push them onto the GB scene that has provided some real highlights for Shillingford.

Ashleigh Pond was the first to make it onto the home nations team and also won a national title under the HoP banner a little more than a year after the club opened.

Ebonie Jones and Ivy Jane-Smith, who both medalled at World Youth Championships in their teenage years, were another two who progressed to full-time Team GB training.

Greg Bridet, whose dreams of making it to the Rio Olympics in 2016 were dashed by a collapsed lung, was also part of Shillingford's stable that have gone onto greater things.

Even Kerry Davis, currently on the Team GB programme, commuted from Gloucestershire three times a week to work with HOP coaches.

It's a quintet that fills Shillingford with pride.

‘Our first national champion was in 2010, that was Ashleigh,' he recalled.

‘We’ve had champions and international boxers every year.

‘If one boxing club had one national champion every 40 years they’d be screaming from the rooftops.

‘We have them every year and sometimes four or five.

‘We’ve had five boxers go to Team GB in 12 years.

‘Ashleigh was the first to go, she was on Team GB. You had Ebonie Jones, she was schoolgirl champion, junior champion, won European gold twice and a world silver medalist.

‘She then got on Team GB with us and then she joined the military, winning the national senior title.

‘We had Ivy-Jane Smith who again won schools, juniors and youths. She got to a world final and won a silver medal in the world final as well as being a European champion.

‘There was Greg Bridet, England champion, tri-nations champion and on Team GB.

'Kerry Davis was also part of our team. She won an England title, a Great Britain title and who is now, right now, on Team Great Britain.

‘Kerry travelled two-and-a-half hours from Gloucester to train with us.

‘I take pride in the fact we’ve not lost the integrity of amateur boxing as in we do recreational boxing, 100 per cent, we do awards, they get medals and a feelgood factor.

‘We do educational boxing, GCSE, BTEC and then we do competitive boxing.'

Shillingford revealed HOP's sixth boxer to make it onto the GB squad could come sooner rather than later.

The head coach has been working with 18-year-old Holly Heffron for a few years and she won her first national title just before the sport was brought to a halt by the coronavirus outbreak last year.

And the Chichester-based teen is the one Shillingford has real excitement about in his current crop.

‘I took Ebonie Jones (to the Team GB camp) and she rocked the house.

‘Greg Bridet, I put him in there, and said ‘I’ve got a heavyweight’.

‘All of them, Kerry Davis I put her in there, and they were blown away.

'I've got no doubt Holly will do just the same when I take her to Sheffield.'