Don’t mess with our mum
Last updated 16:55, Wednesday, 02 April 2008
Playing with two-year-old Lily Mae on her living room floor, Jackie Short is just another doting mum.
Smiling as she calmly builds and rebuilds the bricks that the youngster knocks down.
Slim, slight even, with big eyes, a broad smile and neatly scraped back hair, she could be an off-duty executive enjoying home-life between board meetings.
But strap her feet, slip her hands in gloves and she is transformed into a cold-eyed, kicking, punching and elbowing fighter, a British, Intercontinental and World Champion Thai boxer.
Her career spans 24 fights in more than a decade, with just six defeats, some of which she accepts, others still rankle.
The first-ever fight is still fresh in the mind.
She squirms in her seat and stirs the sugar in her milky coffee again at the embarrassment of it.
She had only gone to the Atlas Gym in Denton Holme, Carlisle to learn Thai boxing because her sister was keen on it.
Nine months later, she was a trembling set of nerves in satin shorts as she climbed into a makeshift ring in a smoke-filled working men’s club in Darlington.
She shakes her head: “It was horrendous! I won, but there was no technique, just a brawl.
“It was pure aggression that got me through that fight.
“She was landing punches on me, but I was running after her across the ring to get hold of her.
“The room was full of smoke and it was awful.”
She stirs again to swirl away the memories.
Her sister fought once then gave up. It was different for Jackie.
“I loved it from the minute I went.
“I was a fitness trainer at the time and it was a break from the monotony.
“I didn’t find it hard to learn.”
Despite the years of experience, the better conditioning and the leap in skills, Jackie still feels the same nerves gnawing away in the pit of her stomach that she felt in Darlington.
“That first fight, I had no idea what was going to happen at all.
“I thought ‘what am I letting myself in for?’
“I was ill with nerves, I got myself in that much of a state.
“It does not get any easier, I still get nervous because the standard of fighters I’m facing now is that much better.”
Jackie has a little ritual she goes through before every fight: shadow boxing, listening to dance music, then handing her rings over to partner Kevin Howson before pulling on the gloves and stepping through the ropes.
“All you are waiting for then is for that bell to go and to be hit.
“You want that first kick or punch out of the way, then you know what you are fighting.
“Getting into the ring you think ‘why am I doing this?’ but after a fight you think that was great, let’s have another!”
Jackie, 33, has defended her world title twice, including a bout in November 2004, when she ignored a broken wrist to stop Russian Tereze Lindberg in the fourth round.
In February this year, she was crowned IKF Intercontinental champion after beating American ace Emily Bearden by unanimous decision in Manchester.
And just a few weeks ago she added the UKMF British belt after a points win at the Shepherds’ Inn in Carlisle.
That was supposed to be a rematch against Scot Hilary Mack, but she withdrew at short notice for personal reasons.
Jackie lost to Mack last year and a return bout is one of her top priorities.
Her smile freeze-frames and her eyes flick wider at the suggestion that the loss was not really a ‘catastrophe’.
“It was for me,” she says calmly and closes the subject.
Despite the elbows, the kicks and the punches, she has escaped serious injury over the past 12 years, a testament to her skill as a fighter.
In fact her two worst injuries were the broken wrist (which she managed to fracture in training for the fight) and a gashed eye caused by a ‘dirty’ opponent headbutting her.
The souvenir of that incident is a crescent that shadows the line under her neatly-plucked right eyebrow.
She taps it with the tips of her fingers: “There was so much blood I couldn’t carry on. I needed seven internal stitches and nine on top.
“I had my leg kicked black and blue from my hip to my knee and had to drag it around the next day because it was practically dead.”
Despite her hard-fought and hard-won reputation in the ring, Jackie admits she is fiercely houseproud, regularly nagging Keeley about the state of her bedroom and generally keeping the house spotlessly tidy.
And although the teenager is going to the gym to train at the sport, her mum isn’t keen for the interest to grow.
She pauses, then says slowly: “It would be her choice if she wanted to fight.
“I probably would mind, but it would be up to her.
“I know what it feels like in that ring and seeing my daughter being punched and kicked would make me climb in, I would need security!
“If I saw her in the ring and someone was hitting her, I would be ill, but I don’t think she has intentions of going that far.”
While Jackie has a high pain threshold, she confesses that giving birth is a completely different experience to battling in the ring: “I was screaming like someone out of EastEnders when I gave birth to Lily Mae!
“It is much harder giving birth. I think they must have run out of drugs.”
The birth of Lily has seriously affected Jackie’s fighting career in all sorts of ways.
Since her arrival, Jackie has struggled to put on enough pounds to make the 50-52 kilo weights for her superfly and flyweight fights.
She now has to arrange babysitting duties for her training sessions which have moved from Maryport to Carlisle to cut down travel times and travelling abroad for a fight is out of the question.
It has also made her think more carefully about her future.
She insists she is fitter and more skilful than ever, but thinks more about the effect a serious injury might have on the family and what Lily might think if mummy comes home one night covered in bruises.
Now she and trainer Stuart Holden are picking and choosing her fights more carefully.
Her family would not miss the fighting.
Keeley, 16, has only started watching her mum fight in the past year. Jackie’s mum doesn’t like her fighting, but forces herself to go, while her dad refuses and wants her to end her career on a high.
“Mum gets ill, but says it is easier to watch than to sit at home and wait for a phone call to hear how I’ve done. She watches through her fingers.
“Dad wants me to finish now. He finds it hard to come and watch and says it makes him badly.
“My next fights will have to be worthwhile, it’s not for the money or the titles but to know I have fought and beaten the people known to be the best.
“And I want to fight this Glasgow girl again.”
The steel in her eye vanishes as she returns to being a doting mum and gets up to meet Keeley and choose a dress for her school prom night . . .
