Joe Ramage: Defining success with Savannah Marshall and Hartlepool United

In a world where success can be dominated by the outcome of a particular event, such as at this time of the year whether it’s Manchester City parading another Premier League trophy or supporters in the Football League invading the pitch after reaching a Wembley play-off final, Marshall’s ‘Off The Canvas – The Better You’ project shows there are different ways to define success.

Sometimes it’s not about league positions, knockout ratios or belts and trophies.

Sometimes success can be knowing you have made a difference and knowing your impact has been a positive one.

In a town where success has felt estranged over the last 12 months given the significance Hartlepool United hold and how their relegation from the Football League has impacted the mood, and even Marshall’s unanimous decision loss to Claressa Shields in October, it’s important to keep searching for it.

FC Hartlepool have led the way in a football sense with an incredible league and cup double this season as they prepare to represent the town with an historic return to the Northern League scene next season.

That is the kind of tangible success everybody loves to be a part of and relate to and one which will, hopefully, bring more eyes to them next season. And yet there are other forms.

Although Marshall will be defined by her in ring skills and accolades amassed in boxing, when she was running around Stranton Primary School sports hall playing kids games with a number of young children there may not have been a world championship belt or an Olympic medal involved, there may not have been an opponent or a rival to deal with, but it felt organic. It felt successful.

The smiles Marshall and her ‘Better You’ project brought, and will continue to bring, to young schoolchildren is a different kind of success to any goal or knockout.

While those goals and those knockout successes may provide short-term rewards be it promotion, championships or an increased income, given how quickly things in sport can turn around, they are just that: short-term.

Later this summer Marshall will be back in the ring doing what she does best where the definition of success will be determined by whether or not her hand will be raised or if Franchon Crews-Dezurn’s hand will be raised instead.

Success, in that sense, is laid out for all to see.

But success with ‘The Better You’ project may be everlasting for some of the schoolchildren who take part in it.

Marshall described how a similar project may have equipped her with the tools necessary to overcome the self-doubt she accuses when missing out on an Olympic medal. How successful then would it be if her impact in promoting this project were to enable a future sports star to go on and achieve what we all relate to success in the future?

Hartlepool, as a town, has been starved of what we usually define as success, in a sporting aspect, over the last 12 months, but there remains success stories out there and Marshall is leading the way.