Boxing

Boxing: Shane Abery

What got you interested in the competition?

My children encouraged me to enter the competition; they saw the Blue Peter advert for the children’s competition and wanted more information so I looked online and saw that there was also a competition for adults to enter so to encourage the children to enter their coins I agreed to enter one. After about two days they both gave up and said I’m not doing it but I said I’ve started so I‘m going to carry on with no real intention of sending it off. Once I had drawn it they said it was really good and that I had to send it off so it was down to the children.

Why did you choose boxing for your design?

I choose the sport of boxing purely because I like it and I had a little bit of knowledge on the subject whereas the other sports I’m not really in to so it would have been hard for me to draw and come up with a design for a coin not knowing the background of the sport and having participated as a child for a year or two in boxing I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to have my name linked with the boxing sport if I was to win.

What was the inspiration behind your idea?

The idea was quite easy really, to me the sport of boxing is boxing gloves and its symbolic and everyone can see a pair of boxing gloves and quickly link the gloves to the sport so it was just laying them out in the right way so people would notice and immediately say yes that’s boxing.

How does it feel to know your coin is going to be in the pockets of millions of people for years to come?

When I turned up at the Royal Mint it really hit home the enormity of what was happening, to have my coin in the British coin heritage and to leave a legacy for my children, up until I arrived at the Royal mint I didn’t really think about things like that but now I can look at my change and see my coin and it’s something that will always be there for my family to look on.