At 10 years old, young Matthew Marsh was interested in keeping fit and working out, so when his dad took him to Eltham Amateur Boxing Club in South London, a raw talent was soon discovered. After walking out of the club after the first training session had finished, Matt was well and truly in love with this sport called boxing.

Matt immediately stepped into the ring at the age of 11, very soon following his first few training sessions with Eltham ABC. Although losing his first ever boxing fight in a contest which many still believed Matt had won, he was soon eagerly back in the ring winning fights regularly. Narrowly losing an NABC final at 14 years old was something that his club and trainers were proud of but Matt’s competitive desire to win was not satisfied.

At 15 years old Matt was serious about his boxing and his ambition was relentless.

‘I felt that I had gone as far as I could go with Eltham so I switched to West Ham ABC.

I had heard from other people that it was a good club with good trainers so I made the decision and stuck with it.

My trainers there were Micky May and Terry Abbott. Both are still a big influence in my career and I regard them as the best boxing trainers I have ever met.’

Matt’s professional career started on 10 september 2004 His first opponent at his favourite of all venues, York Hall, was Freddy Janes a brave challenger who took several powerful clean punches from the new boy but refused to go down.Freddy made Matt go the full four rounds and although shaken at times, he stayed up through the onslaught for a terrific debut fight.

It was that night, with a huge crowd of family and friends behind him, that he caught the eye of the York Hall faithful. Since then there has always been a very warm welcome from the Bethnal Green crowd and a following of fans that continues to grow.

Matt then went on to fight other boxers like fred james, DeanWard, Abdul Mougharbel, Dai Davis, Darren Cleary and Fredric Gosset before defeating Rocky Dean on two occasions for the Feather Weight and Super Bantamweight Southern Area Titles. Fighting on the same bills as big British name boxers such as Ricky Hatton, Amir Kahn, Ross Minter, Takaloo, Kevin Mitchell, Wayne Alexander, Matt Skelton, Audley Harrison.

Matt’s biggest fight to date against WBU World Champion Derry Mathews proved that he is willing to fight anyone and at weights not entirely suitable for his stature. Matt’s fearless attitude and dogged determination shone through during this thrilling encounter at his beloved York Hall venue in this top of the bill fight. Although the result wasn’t exactly what we had all hoped, there was nothing but positives to take from the experience.

   Matt is now a boxer with an edge of maturity to his game and equipped with this new armoury of awesome yet unexpected power. The same power that Ajibu Salum walked into in the
first round on 2nd February 2008.
The work that goes into training is far more exertive than most
other sports. It is crucial that all boxers work on their stamina to
get through the gruelling, physical contests.

‘I get up at 5am each morning to do some sprints around the
block a few times. At 11am I go to the gym and do my circuit. I get
on the pads, the bags, some skipping and sparring work. At 4pm,
I work on the weights and then later on when I’m back home I go
for a light run for an hour in the evening.’