Mathews gets the Accolade

Derry Mathews has been given a big boost ahead of his WBU World Featherweight title defence against Matthew Marsh.The unbeaten Liverpool fighter has been nominated as the Boxing Writers' Young Boxer of the Year and will pick up the award at a glittering ceremony at the Savoy Hotel. Mathews, who won the title from Stephen Foster Jnr with a superb performance last year, makes the second defence against Marsh at the York Hall on Saturday 13th October."I nearly choked on my cornflakes when I got the call to say I had won!" Said Mathews."I'm really honoured that the respected and knowledgeable boxing writers have chosen me as their boxer of the year. When you look down the list of great British fighters who have previously won the award it makes your spine tingle. I never would have imagined that my name would appear alongside Randolph Turpin who beat the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson.He added, "I've got a tough title defence against Marsh coming up but I'm confident in my skills as are the boxing writers who nominated me and I've trained hard so I'm going in there to put on a great performance and retain my title."Matthews is the first fighter from Liverpool in nearly 20 years to win the prestigious award. The last was Paul Hodkinson who went on to win the WBC World Featherweight title. Previous winners from Merseyside are John Conteh, Keith Wallace and Alan Rudkin.Frank Warren, who has promoted fourteen past winners including Nigel Benn, Naseem Hamed, Joe Calzaghe and Ricky Hatton, said, "I am absolutely delighted for Derry and his achievements. He was a superb amateur and has excelled in the professional ranks and I'm expecting big things from him in the future. Liverpool has produced some great fighters in the past and there is some fantastic young talent coming through now with the likes of Paul Smith, Stephen Burke, Joe McNally and pro-debutant Tony Bellew and we are looking forward to promoting some big events with these guys when the new Liverpool Echo Arena opens next year."