A generous donation of more than £2,000 will help an amateur boxing club get its own minibus.

Wigton Amateur Boxing Club received £2,209 after Carolyn Williamson, from the town, used her birthday event to raise funds for the club.

Her daughter Tara Hedley presented the club with a cheque and Wigton ABC founder Andi Crossman said he was very grateful.

He said: “Tara’s children are members of the club and it’s great how parents and families see the good job we do and want to help us. They decided to make it a ticket event, like a charity function, and gave the proceeds to us.

“They charged £10 for tickets, which covered the cost of the band, and raffle tickets were sponsored by Glenrental, which meant that 100 per cent of the raffle profits went to the club.

“They don’t realise how much that will help. Since we opened the club, it’s always been the goal to get a minibus and this will go towards that.

“At the moment, I’m travelling up and down the country in my car - I don’t want anything for that, but it would be more professional if we turn up to events in a club bus.”

He added that they would also like to use a minibus to offer a “pick-up” service to young boxing club members whose parents may find it difficult to take them to junior coaching sessions due to their working hours.

Andi, meanwhile, said he was proud of fighter Robbie Pattinson despite his defeat to Sale fighter Patrick Brown last Friday.

In last week’s Cumberland News we reported on 21-year-old Robbie’s remarkable return to the ring just 10 months after he had been a millimetre from death when he was stabbed in the face during a night out.

He faced Brown in Blackburn for a north west regional belt in the 81-86kg category, but his more experienced opponent got the upper hand.

Andi said: “The lad boxed well and caught Robbie early with a body shot. He got up but it’s hard to recover quickly from that, and he [Brown] targeted the body again.

“Robbie went down and got up twice more, and would have carried on, but three counts in a round stops the fight – those are the rules.

"I’m very proud of him and he lives to fight another day.”

Andi said Robbie had received good luck messages from across the world, including Australia and South Africa, after our exclusive article last Friday.