Join us as we step into the ring with Natasha Jonas, British professional boxer and world champion
Find out how she made history as the first female boxer to represent Team GB in the Olympics.
Her story is as much about shattering stereotypes as it is about delivering knockouts.
Tune in for an episode that goes beyond the sport, for inclusion, mentorship, and the power of self-belief.
Listen to learn:
- The role of strong community support
- How sports can illuminate a path for youth, especially young girls
- How to come back from rock bottom
- The importance of living in the present
You can now nominate for the 2025 Northern Power Women Awards to be in with a chance of celebrating with changemakers, trailblazers and advocates on 6th March 2025! Nominate now at wearepower.net
Sign up to our Power Platform to check out our events calendar here.
Keep up to date on the latest news from We Are Power : Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram & Facebook
Sign up to our newsletter.
Join us as we step into the ring with Natasha Jonas, British professional boxer and world champion
Find out how she made history as the first female boxer to represent Team GB in the Olympics.
Her story is as much about shattering stereotypes as it is about delivering knockouts.
Tune in for an episode that goes beyond the sport, for inclusion, mentorship, and the power of self-belief.
Listen to learn:
- The role of strong community support
- How sports can illuminate a path for youth, especially young girls
- How to come back from rock bottom
- The importance of living in the present
You can now nominate for the 2025 Northern Power Women Awards to be in with a chance of celebrating with changemakers, trailblazers and advocates on 6th March 2025! Nominate now at wearepower.net
Sign up to our Power Platform to check out our events calendar here.
Keep up to date on the latest news from We Are Power : Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram & Facebook
Sign up to our newsletter.
Music the Northern Power Women podcast For your career and your life, no matter what business you're in. Hello, hello, welcome to the Northern Power Women podcast. International Women's Day series. This is our special season. We are talking to some of the most fantastic, phenomenal role models from across the world of sport, all different types of sport, all backgrounds, all different experiences. So, whether people are in the world of sport or working around the business of sport, that's what we're talking about this season. We're talking about inspiring inclusion. Today, I couldn't be giddy here, because we're in the office at Power HQ here in Northern Power and I've got Natasha Jonas on the couch.
Speaker 2:Natasha, thank you.
Speaker 1:Welcome. Thanks so much for taking the time out. You've had a busy time of it recently, right, I've had a lot, just a little bit. So you're out of camp now. Is that how we call it? Yeah, Holiday mood. Oh, we'll get into that. Well, that looks like at the moment. So Natasha has three junior I've had to write this down separately just to make sure I get it right. Three junior middleweight titles WBO, IBF and WBC, One welterweight IBF and also one junior middle ring belt. Is that right? That's right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Win in a life. There you go. That's my first win. You know what we love every week to be able to talk to some fantastic role models. Everyone's got a different story. Everyone's got a different experience. What's brilliant is you're probably the closest to where we live and operate in Northern Power Women HQ, because you're literally from up the road in Toxter, aren't you Literally like I?
Speaker 2:can almost see me in Anstuflum, yes.
Speaker 1:We'll give. We'll give that. What's Nan's name? Esther? Esther. We'll give Nan a wave as well. I really appreciate you coming in and saying you're out of camp now as well. So you've just gone through. You retained your title a few weeks back, didn't you? Congratulations, nice job, thank you. How do you feel You've got all that training? How do you feel when it's over?
Speaker 2:It is like a calm down, like the first emotion that I feel is relief, because I'm like God, that's them. But then yet there is like a big calm down and it's that high that you're addicted to. That's what keeps you, like people say, oh, how long can you keep doing it? I could probably do it forever because I'm addicted to that feeling. But then obviously everything comes to an end eventually.
Speaker 1:What is the hardest bit of the whole kind of cycle?
Speaker 2:I think with this camp it was a little bit different because we were going over Christmas. So you know it's the end of the year, december. Most fighters, like Spartan partners, have, like done for the year, unless they're fighting on the same building done for the year. So you know Spartan partners are the polemic of their Christmas and, you know, forget Christmas. Then they're just coming to spar with me instead. That's hard. Obviously there's all kinds of flu.
Speaker 2:I've got a little girl, so she's just a little bug magnet in herself. So you know, she goes back to school after half time, comes back home and I'm like and then, just yet, just Christmas as well, just having. You know, everyone likes to over-indulge at Christmas, but this camp I was just like I had a Christmas dinner but I couldn't do the over-indulging bit, which was a little bit different. So but yeah, most camps are pretty much the same. Camps are hard but people don't realise like by the time you get in the ring people will judge it off that 20 minutes that you're in there. But that's the easy bit. I've trained 10 weeks to be there. In fact I've trained the only life to be there. So, yeah, that's the bit where I'm like it's all coming. You're peaking yeah, everything's flying. Everything's going well, hopefully, everything's going well. You're injured free. You're bug free yeah, that's the good bit.
Speaker 1:We talk a lot about people's different career paths and stories and stuff like that, and no one has that one set path.
Speaker 2:You started playing football before you were boxing, didn't you? Yeah, I've done a million sports, to be honest, yeah, football was my first love. I'd say I still love football now. I played in some charity matches and I realised that, yeah, I'm no way near the standard that's required because I always think, oh, I've probably put my football boots back on, but no, that's not going to happen. But Yerol loved footy. I grew up with two older boy cousins in my nan's house and it's an inexplicant thing to do to just get a 19-RP fly away and go and kick the ball for hours, and that's what we used to do.
Speaker 1:And how did you find?
Speaker 2:boxing. It was a very good mistake. I was on a scholarship in America playing football, had all ambitions to be the next in the year to play professional football over there because we were talking 20 years ago, so at the time that's where you needed to be Got injured didn't finish my uni degree, came home and for the first time in my life ever I'd like fell out of love with sports. Because the realisation this is exactly what it was is that I was watching the news and the echo and Beth Tweddle I'd just won a Commonwealth gold and she was like 16 or something. Wayne Rooney had just broken into the Everton team and he was 15, and I was thinking, well, if I was going to be a sports person or be an athlete, I'd already be, because I was 20. You thought you were too old. I thought I was too old, yeah, so I stopped everything.
Speaker 2:Obviously, with me in junior as well, I did like a knee brace on for a good six months, put on a load of weight, and people don't realise how social sport is. I lost a whole set of friends because I wasn't involved in any sport anymore. Sport was kind of my motivation to do anything. Jobs were always a mean to me. So I had to go and pay for the equipment to do the sport that I wanted or pay for whatever I needed. So I just couldn't be motivated and wear a heater and I got sacked from seven jobs in one year. And it came to the end of the year and I'd, like I said, got sacked, I'd put on about two stone and I had lost a load of friends and I thought something has got to change in my life. This is not really working out. This, like doing what you're doing is not really working out.
Speaker 2:So I started going to my uncle's karate gym and there was a lady that used to live over the road that used to watch her for him and she was like I've seen you train by yourself all the time. You're always in and out, like why? And I was like I'm just trying to like got my knee brace off and come back from injury. And she was like, oh, you haven't fought in boxing. I fought, oh no, didn't tell her that I was like shut up. And she was like you should come along to the night We've just started women's only night in the local club, which was the Rotunda ABC. Fopped her off for absolutely months. In the end it got like embarrassing like seeing her and she'd be like oh, you didn't come. I was like, oh yeah, sorry, I was busy last week, I had the job interview, I'll come next week and eventually I went and that was 20 years ago, never looked back.
Speaker 1:What do you think it is that you have in your mindset? You've been over to the States, you do what you love in the footy, then injury changes things. You come back. You've kind of you've lost some of your network and your community through sport Because, like you said, social, and all of a sudden, and you know what, like you've got this, you got this woman who's going come on, crack onto this. What was it in the end that kind of wore you down or what was it that kind of made you go. You know what it's hard, that mindset thing.
Speaker 2:I think it was hitting rock bottom. Like I said, I was, you know, probably now, looking back, I think I was a little bit depressed and I didn't realise it. I didn't know what it was and it took me to get into that place to think no this is not like. This is not for me. I don't want to be here, I don't want to stay here. So yeah, it was just trying something different and she did bring me down. Like I say, that was many years ago. I'm not allowed to.
Speaker 1:And who was it around you Like? So you were in this women-only classes, but I think it was a mixed gym but there was women-only sessions.
Speaker 2:So there was a it's a mixed gym but there was women's only classes, but they was for the whole public. But then the boxing classes like literally within like two months of being there, she was like, look, I think you're good enough to come to the actual boxing classes and be an amateur boxer and you do it and I'm like trying to, I'm like what's good to do anything, of course I'll do it, like when they're after coming. There's different times on different days. So, yeah, I started going to the amateur classes and I was the only girl there, like they'd never had to have a girl before.
Speaker 2:So I remember walking in on the first day and like bearing in mind Belly Avenue all my life. I went to primary school with Belly, but I like to bell you there Steven Smith, liam Smith, callum Smith you know they're all babies after time it's all 20 years ago and I remember walking in and like the first thing you do, you warm up, everyone's warming up, and then you do everyone's like partner, of course you're going to do like work together. And everyone was like going to the mates, going to the thing, and I remember feeling like. I remember going. I remember going around the corner to play football, but me two older boy cousins at first time.
Speaker 2:Now I know one of my cousins is rubbish, but lads always choose the best players and then choose the mates, and he was one of the mates. So I was the little girls getting picked last because no one knew if it was good or not and everyone was like, oh, go on, I'll take you. So that's what it felt like walking in on that first day and everyone said partner, I just got that like feeling oh, my God, it's like being that little girl again. And then Liam Smith said come on, tash, I'll be your partner. And that like expelled everything and from then on it wasn't like cause he was like one of the better performers in the gym. It kind of stopped that like thing of he wants to go with Tash. He just said it and then after that there was no issue.
Speaker 1:That broke down the barrier, I guess, oh, 100%, yeah. And, of course, if someone sees someone, if you're like advocating or standing up for you, then they're going to think, oh well, it's all right then, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's 100%. I don't think he realized the power of that little gesture, but I was like you know what I mean, and it is interesting I think we talk a lot about.
Speaker 1:This whole series is about talking about amazing women in sport. We're absolutely obsessed with real models like yourself, but actually this is the part that amazing guys have to play as well. It's when the good guys leaning can make such a difference.
Speaker 2:Our sport is predominantly male. So, like when we're doing all these, you know, advocating for all women's rights and the changes in some rules and regulations, and even like the fan base, it can't just be a women's movement. It has to have an end involved, because they're predominantly what the sport is.
Speaker 1:And did you have any female role models at this time in the world of boxing? You've talked about some of your female role models in there in the world of football, but who was out there that you were looking at at that time?
Speaker 2:Like boxing is something that made me I just say watch, I've never really I could score a fight and stuff and I enjoyed the boxing but I never really looked at it in that sense. But I do remember when Jane Couch took the British boxing board to control the court, the high court, to be even able to get a professional boxing licence. Now at the time you're talking 1997, I think it was 98. I'm still playing football. But I remember thinking go at girl, like well in, like good for you, and then she was on like a couple of Michael Barrymore things, but still she wasn't someone that had seen boxing. I'd just seen the clips that they show on telly when she comes on or I'd seen the whole like more thing and I didn't really realise all them years later how that would affect me and Jane. Actually I messaged Jane to walk me out in my last fight because I think without her there'd be no us.
Speaker 1:I saw that. I saw that she, just she paved the way for you, right? She's 100%.
Speaker 2:People see, like my generation, as the one that broke down the barriers, because we did go to the Olympics and was the first ones there and we did do this and we did do that. But Jane was there before us and she doesn't really get. She doesn't really get celebrated and recognise what she did as much as like people just think it's us. It's not. There was women before us.
Speaker 1:I always say is that hole on the shoulder of giants, isn't it? You know, we would not be there if those giants hadn't have kind of not just knocked their head against the glass ceiling wall. Everything, everything, everything you wear. What point did it flip Tash? At what point did you go? This is my career. I'm flipping good at this and I'm a lovely.
Speaker 2:I don't think there was a certain point maybe being on the GB squad and the Olympics. I think that was a big turn of point for the whole sport and a home Olympics as well.
Speaker 1:Exactly, you know, come on, yeah, yeah. So um Spice skills in the taxis, sort of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was just a crazy time. But I think I always like set myself like I just seen what was. I try so much now to live just now in the present. But you have to. You do set bigger challenges. And like I remember the when she said, right, you're gonna go to the amateur class. I was like, fine. Then they was like okay, you've got a club show, you can be on the club show. And I was like, okay, that's the goal, Be on the club show, win the club show. And I won that. And they were like, right, we can get you another fight, we'll be on our club show, but you can get your. I said, yeah, I'll do that. And I'm like I just won that one too, I'll do it again. Done that. And then I think I had three or four. And then it was like okay, there's the national championships, which is the ABAs. Do you want to do that? And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do that. And then I won that. So every stage there was like, Every time I reached the goal, there was another goal to be reached, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So you know, and then after the ABAs, I won them. Then you start going to tournaments with England because you're the champion of England. So then you start being able to represent England At this time there's no Olympics. So I thought, you know, I've got another top with Jonas on the back, thinking, yeah, this is as far as it's going to get. And then he was like, okay, there's going to be another pick. Now we have to do a team Great Britain. They never had to do before. She had assessments for months and got onto that. And then he was like, okay, now you're part of Team GB, so now that goal is the Olympics. And it was just. It's just every single step. There's always been something to, there's always been another challenge and another challenge, and it just so happened that I was in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1:But I think that it sort of strikes me as you're that person to say yes. You say yes to those opportunities I'm living in the present. I'm going to yeah, I can crack on and do that, although it did take you a while to get in the gym in the first place. Yeah, yeah, it seems like since that moment you've just gone. Yeah, go on, go ahead, I'll have a go with that.
Speaker 2:I'm the type of person like I would even to get to America like I failed the exam in the first time so you have to get a score, a certain score failed the score, so I had to take it at a second time. But I couldn't just stop then and be like wait a minute, I missed it, I didn't get it and that's it. It is what it is. I'll go a different way. But that regret I can't live with. Like I'm not even trying, I'm not trying to take the opportunity. It's bigger than the trying and failing for me. I don't mind failing. I hate failing. I hate it. But at least I can say I've done it. If I've done it on a fail it's better than not doing it at all.
Speaker 1:And what is your level, or who are your levelers around you that get you off the canvas when, literally when, there has been that failure or something hasn't quite gone to plan? Who are those people around you that are like come on, yeah no, definitely.
Speaker 2:My mum and dad goes without saying. My nan is someone who's a comfort. And then I've got two cousins that I'm very, very close to and like, even when it was that decision to go from retiring from the Amateurs to come on back as a pro. These two cousins are the ones I spoke to, because they see the other side of everyone, see she's glory in your glory moments and they see your co-waltz and the gold medals and whatever no one sees. Like when I cried for two days after getting beat by Katie and the Olympics, I literally cried for two days, but they did. So if I've got a big decision to make, they're the people that I'll go to my mum, my dad, my nan and my two cousins. I'm one less mate as well.
Speaker 1:It's like almost your little personal boardroom, isn't it? Yeah yeah, you know we'll go probably around the back. Go, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't tell them that They'll want that on the back now, oh gosh yeah.
Speaker 1:And when you on your fight the other week, when you won, what stood out to me is, right at the end you were getting asked a question. You were like, right, I'm not answering that. What I want to highlight tonight is everyone who's here, the people who've been on the bill forgive me, I've got some of the terminology who've been on, the who've been on the bill before me, the younger fighters, the teams that are surrounding it, and that's what you wanted to do. You wanted to take your victory but to highlight everyone else that's coming up behind you. That really stood out for me. That's really important to you, isn't it?
Speaker 2:You talk about community paying it forward, giving back all the time, but you use your platform of victory that night to call to celebrate that, yeah, I think sometimes we are like we're going to go put the police in Liverpool and in the sense of, like you know, sports and athletes that we've got, but we don't always celebrate them the way we and recognise them, I think, the way we should. And it's not always about, you know, me and Noringa or Steeclar or Mikey Talon, but there's coaches there that are part of the team. There's essence of you coaches there. There's nutritionists all of them that part of the team needs to be celebrated. And the fans, because times are really hard.
Speaker 2:Me and Ben have done a toy drive with girls down the road in Dingo from Tast and you know they've done it for ten years. I've been involved with the last couple but like hearing the stories of how it's gone from Dingo to Liverpool to, you know, south Liverpool to now Liverpool wide, and how many families that are in need of that and are atop, like it's heartbreaking that they. You know, and I've been that mum struggling in lockdown. I'm a professional athlete. You don't compete, you don't get paid, the board has closed all the boxes off, so for a good two years I didn't get any money.
Speaker 2:So I've been that mum struggling. I know what that's like to be able to not be able to give you a kid a Christmas present. That's heartbreaking. So, yeah, that's something that we got involved in. The girls were all there that night as well, but you know to recognise the people in the crowd that have spent hard day and cash when you know it's not a necessity, not everybody's got it, but they wanted to be there and they wanted to support their own. I think that needs to be celebrated. We are a community. I think in the pro that you know, for good, bad, whatever, when it comes down to standing and solidarity and sticking together that we do.
Speaker 1:You talk about that. I've seen some of the videos you've done. You talk about that. It takes a community. It takes to like, lift and raise those, whether it's your girls coming through sport, whether it's you know sort of the success that you've had as well, I think, and things like. Again, you, the giving back. You've been a mentor, haven't you? For the sports trust as well, which is an amazing organisation. I think it used to be had up by Sue Campbell, didn't it? She was great. I love that woman. But that's important to you, isn't it? That whole mentoring. What's the key bit that you always want to?
Speaker 2:pass on. Oh gosh, I think, just to fully figure yourself. There's a whole bigger wealth out there. I think.
Speaker 2:I am not like. Sometimes you see people on the telly and you see you know stars or athletes or whatever and you think yeah, that's them and you never think it could be you. So I try and instill that like I was literally that person. You know, I do a lot of work in schools, with the youth sports trust, at Kelly Holmes Trust and, just off my own, back in community groups, because for so long I didn't realise how powerful my voice was and I didn't want to say anything. I had a bit of, you know, I don't know inferiority complex and you know imposter syndrome, and now sport has given me that voice on that platform. So try and use it positively. You know, people, weirdly enough, want to hear what I've got to say and so I think that's important to say something good and say something that people can take on board.
Speaker 1:And I think that that is using your power for girls and that power of sport. You know we've got to have more girls in sport, haven't we? You know we talked earlier before we started recording about. You know that the dropout point of young girls in school and it's a crisis, isn't it? We need more investment in that grassroots to ensure our young girls can compete in whatever sport.
Speaker 2:Having a sports team won't do, right, yeah of course, I'm quite fortunate that I've never felt out of place with the lads, like I say, play football and whatever, but I know that girls do. So we need to create these spaces and more opportunities. The sports that I do now I didn't get the opportunity to do when I was little, for whatever reasons, like money being a big one and opportunity being another. I think you know the more there's a little Usain Bolt running around somewhere that's undiscovered because he hasn't been given the opportunity. You know he doesn't know, he hasn't been. You know I don't know what the way there's guided into where it is or, yeah, he hasn't been there to enter it, and I think we need to find them there. The kids we need to find, because there's so much talent, I could say, in our city, but not all of it is always discovered.
Speaker 1:And it's sometimes, it's just even the case. Sometimes, if you get, get them paired up way back at you in that gym. I haven't even picked, was it, Billy? You know what do you think overall that sport has taught you along the way?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest thing that it's given me is opportunity and confidence. Like I say that having that power, people actually want to listen to what I say and I never thought I was that person, and so it's given me the confidence to be able to sit in parliamentary groups and and say say what needs to be said. It gives me the confidence to go into schools and places of business and speak to you know CEOs and executives, and have that confidence in my message. But I think, more than more than anything, what I try and portray to the kids and this is actually a true story I watched the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988 and said to me Mum, I want to be there. And I was four. I was like whatever? Like yeah, you're gonna need to practice, and I went and kicked me all four hours thinking it was gonna be even four more, but 24 years later, I was in the Olympic Games in London, 2012. My mum, when I qualified, based on crying because she remembered me saying that.
Speaker 2:And it took me 24 years, 105 different sports and millions of hours and millions and, by the way, every single sport I did. My mum and dad did it with me. They took me to every box. They picked me up, sat there through it. My dad sat there through endless netball tournaments, football tournaments and stayed and watched the whole game. So they've done it all with me and to be able to have that dream come true from that little girl just saying I wanna be there. They didn't know I was gonna get there. They didn't even know why I wanted to be there. I just liked all the sports that was on the telly. But I got there and there's been ups and downs, there's been whatever there's been, but that belief and that hard work got me there in the end. That's universal. You believe in yourself, no matter what your dream is. Not everyone's dream is gonna be in sport, but if you work hard, have it and you believe in yourself, even when nobody else does, then anything's possible.
Speaker 1:Finally, you talked earlier about living in the present, and there's always a target. There's always a target. What's next for Tash?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, good question. Holiday in an impuncture. Bless me little girl. She knows when it's Miss GB and there's mum and she goes from every camp that I do. All the selection boxes got launched, all the treats get launched out of the cupboard. She's limited. She goes to my nance to get treats and then she comes back home she fill herself with sugar and she comes back. So yeah, I think after everything we've come to like a thing left there and I sacrifice so much time. But I wanna get. We have quality time when it's all done, dusted. But I think I've still got one, maybe possibly two big fights and big nights left in me. So we'll see. Hopefully Ben can sort them out. He's done me good so far, so hopefully he can sort them out.
Speaker 1:Don't stop doing everything the good that you do as well outside of the sport, using your voice for good being heard, being at those tables. I think that's so, so important. Thank you so much. I try to thank you. Thank all of you for this amazing, special episode of our Northern Power Women podcast today. Just a big honor to be joined by you and our MPWHQ today. Thank all of you for watching. Stay connected on all of our socials at North Power Women on Twitter and Northern Power Women on all the other ones. You have been listening to the Northern Power Women podcast, a what Goes On media production.