At 4pm on Sunday, racist attention seeker Tommy Robinson tweeted about Bolton from the confines of his five-star holiday resort in Cyprus, where he is trying to avoid arrest, stoking the chaos that is tearing so many communities in our society to their core.
It was pure chance that exactly two minutes later a young boxer from that small town entered the ring in the Seine-Saint-Denis department in the northwest of Paris, to fight and to behave in a way that laughed in the face of those who, like Robinson, sow division and hatred.
Cindy Ngamba crossed herself as she walked into an Olympic arena to fight a French opponent, Davina Michel. Boos rained down on Ngamba before she even lifted a glove. She didn’t move a muscle.
The significance of her victory in the 75kg quarter-finals perhaps only became clear to the 25-year-old when she entered the mixed zone, where American, French, Italian and British journalists gathered amid the din of the stadium sound system to ask their questions.
It was a bunfight there, as Ngamba fights for the Refugee Olympic Team. Her win means she is guaranteed to become their first-ever medallist when she fights Panamanian Atheyna Bylon on Wednesday night.
Cindy Ngamba crossed herself as she entered an Olympic arena where she was fighting a French opponent, Davina Michel. Boos rained down on Ngamba (pictured above)
The significance of her victory in the quarter-finals of the 75 kg class only became clear to her when she entered the mixed zone, where journalists were crowding to ask their questions.
The strains of Ngamba’s Bolton accent were unmistakable in that frenetic five-minute conversation, and she certainly didn’t forget the city that had shaped her, as she talked about friends she knew had cheered for her there.
She thought back to the Bolton Lads & Girls Club, a place where the city’s young people have learned to grow up and live together for more than a century. At the last count, there were more than 4,000 active members.
All colours and creeds, although no one feels the need to refer to them. For Ngamba, it was simply the place where, over 10 years ago, she first saw a boxing gym, loved the smell, the feel and the sound of the place and never left.
Ngamba also reflected on Bolton College, where she is considered one of their own, and the University of Bolton, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in crime and criminal justice last year.
The Bolton News, always an excellent barometer of the town, wanted its readers to know all this. ‘Messages of support for Bolton boxer’ was one of its headlines at the weekend, under a plea for calm from the town’s leaders in anticipation of the chaos and violence they knew was coming.
It can’t be said that Ngamba’s path through life in Britain was easy. She and her older brother were sent from their native Cameroon to live with their father at the age of 10. Speaking English was a struggle for a while.
Neither parent appears to have been a permanent fixture. Ngamba was arrested during a routine appointment at an immigration office in Manchester in 2019, detained and faced the threat of deportation to West Africa because she could not produce documents, despite now having refugee status.
The sounds of Ngamba’s Bolton accent were unmistakable in that frenetic, five-minute, mixed-zone exchange, and she certainly didn’t forget the city that had shaped her
She is competing on the Refugee Olympic Team as she is still waiting for citizenship and a passport from the country she has called home for 15 years.
She is participating in the Refugee Olympic Team because she is still waiting for citizenship and a passport from the country where she has lived for 15 years.
It’s hard not to be moved by a short clip of Ngamba on the Instagram feed of GB Boxing, who have coached her for more than two years. “Everyone has a setback in life,” she says. “If you can look past that sense of self-pity, you can understand the obstacles that come your way. You just have to get on with it, you really do.”
She earned her money by working part-time in a warehouse and as a cleaner.
They had never had a female boxer at that club in Bolton before she signed up and for a while — too long, she says — they wouldn’t let her get any further than skipping rope.
When she refused to leave, the coaches began showing her moves; how to dodge punches. At 18, Ngamba was too old to go to the Lads & Girls club and moved to the Halliwell ABC gym, located amid the terraced back streets of Bolton.
GB Boxing coaches describe how they have seen this young woman grow in so many ways under their tutelage. ‘She has become stronger, not just as a boxer, but as a person,’ says one, Joe Hale.
She is actually part of the British team and trains every week in Sheffield with the Podium Squad, the full-time British boxing group that competes internationally. However, she is not given access to the same British sports funding because she is not a British citizen.
Ngamba pictured with Natasha Jonas after sparring during her training for the Olympic Games
The British boxing team has seconded coach Darren Maher to the IOC refugee team to act as its head coach.
In that mixed zone, French journalists, who knew that Ngamba had lived her first 11 years in French-speaking Cameroon, asked her to speak in their language. She wasn’t sure she could anymore, she said, before trying, at one point breaking off to ask, “What’s the word for ‘challenge?’”
Gold, silver or bronze, Ngamba’s name and her image will be going around the world on Wednesday night. Bolton will be right behind her.
Icon Souness bares soul in new podcast
It was a privilege to spend two days with Graeme Souness, discussing his life story in a series of interviews for the Ny Breaking’s new six-part podcast series, Everything I Know About Me.
His awareness of the fragility of life led him to so much reflection, some of which is still a source of pain. The death of his mother Elizabeth, for example, which he learned of while on the Liverpool team bus. He heard about it during a phone call when the bus stopped and was late returning, which led to a scolding from the coaches.
It was a privilege to spend two days with Graeme Souness, discussing his life story in a series of interviews for a new six-part Ny Breaking podcast series, Everything I Know About Me
As news of the nature of the call filtered through the bus, the tone changed. Joe Fagan sat with Souness for the rest of the journey, offering comfort.
These were the most difficult times, with the most uncompromising players pitted against each other, but there was more empathy than you might think.
