While it may almost be at the point of cliché to say that couples who end up married are “meant to be”, it really did seem like fate was drawing Natalie Deans towards her partner Clare.
The pair narrowly missed each other on multiple occasions, and things could very easily have gone in a different direction if Natalie had made just slightly different choices in sport.
Clare had been playing hockey since she was a youngster, but Natalie went another way. Having tried her hand at football, snowsports, surfing and weightlifting, it was a chance encounter while travelling that saw her land on boxing – and setting the target of competing at the Gay Games.
“I fell into boxing because I was travelling around Denmark,” she recalled.
“I was in the hostel bar with an American who was staying in my room, and she was from Ohio, where the Gay Games took place in 2014, and she said she was going to Bari to work for six months and her brother was going to the Gay Games in Paris in 2018.
“We were getting drunk on elephant beer looking at all the sports that were in the Gay Games, and I just thought I could do boxing. That’s how it started for me in 2017, in a dingy bar in Denmark.
“There was an LGBTQ+ boxing class that used to be in Maryhill on a Saturday morning, but at the time I worked night shifts as a baker so I could never go. When I stopped working there, the class had moved to The Edge in Broomhill, so I went along and I still go now. I think it was the only LGBTQ+ boxing class in Scotland – a variant of Knockout Boxing in London.
“It just kind of felt right to be honest. When I was growing up, my older cousin was mad for boxing. He would watch all of Mike Tyson’s fights, and growing up I loved the Rocky films, so I just took to it.
“Boxing can be a really empowering thing for people who don’t feel empowered. I don’t think that’s how I felt, but it made me feel very focused – it gave me a mental clarity when I was training, so it was quite cathartic.
“The gym is ran by Bernie Hammersley and his wife Louisa, and Bernie says that as soon as I started he could see that I knew how to move.
“I said in our wedding speech that I can’t cope with speaking in front of a room full of friends and family, but I am absolutely fine with someone trying to punch my head off in the ring.”
Having the goal of competing at the Gay Games 2018 certainly helped provide impetus for that focus Natalie felt, and in a matter of months she was competing in Paris.
She took to the potentially intimidating environment of a boxing gym like a duck to water, encouraging others from the LGBTQ+ class to attend during the week and become regulars in the space – made possible by Hammersley’s no-nonsense approach to any sort of discriminatory comments.
Natalie herself would get fitter with every passing week, and by the time she went to Paris she would win a silver medal.
However, it was the connections she made out of the ring that would prove to be even more life-changing.
Reveling in what could have been another stressful space with coach Hammersley unable to travel for health reasons, Natalie would find herself adopted by athletes representing other countries in a different sport, and they would eventually lead her to meeting her wife Clare.
“I had been wandering up and down the gay bars in Paris, and although we were Team Scotland for the first time ever, there was a Team GB party where we could get discounts on drinks,” Natalie explained.
“I’m staunchly Scottish, but for cheap drink at that point I would be British, so I went to this bar and the people hosting the party turned out to be a hockey team from London. When their captain found out I was a boxer, she told me to give her 20 press ups, and that was me adopted after that.
“They had a spare ticket to a boat party, and Clare was there as well but she was consoling one of her slightly drunk friends so we never met even though we have all these pictures of us dancing with the same people.
“I made great pals with that hockey team, the London Royals, so I became an honorary member even though I had never played hockey in my life. They asked me down to London, and I went in goal for one game because they were short of players, and that led to them asking me to come with them to the EuroGames in Rome in 2019.
“I went to London Pride with the hockey team a few days before heading out, and Clare was in Camden too – she says she noticed me across the bar, but I wouldn’t have noticed myself in the mirror so again we never spoke.
“The first night we were in Rome, we had a massive party at what is apparently the only gay bar in Rome – right outside the Coliseum – and that is where we finally met.”
Clare continued: “After the first night we met, we played a match against one another. I have played hockey since I was 12, so I’m really competitive.
“We had to line up at the start of the match and exchange a wee gift, and all my teammates told me to go to Natalie because they had seen us chatting the night before, but I was dead serious so Natalie says she thought I didn’t like her anymore.
“I’m like that when I’m playing hockey, because I want to win. I was just in the zone.”
Finally crossing paths after several near misses, Natalie and Clare quickly became inseparable.
They met up consistently throughout the rest of their time in Rome, and by the time they each landed back home Clare had booked tickets to come and see Natalie in Glasgow.
Before long, they were living together – and the lockdowns that accompanied the Covid-19 pandemic brought them even closer together.
They got engaged on Christmas Eve 2020, and got married on July 23, 2022 – all stemming back to a fairly spur of the moment decision from Natalie at that hostel bar in Denmark.
“I had never heard of the Gay Games before, and it was just on a whim that I decided to go,” Natalie said.
“I can’t remember how I got in touch with Leap Sports, but they essentially paid for me to go to Paris. It’s quite expensive, because you have to pay for your license and event fees, then it’s on for two weeks so accommodation is extortionate. There is like a bursary thing that Leap managed to get funding for, and if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have been able to go.
“If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have met the people from London, and I wouldn’t be sitting here with Clare married. Not only did I meet my wife, but I met a lot of my best pals too. I got a proper community out of it.
“My auntie is gay, and she has been with her wife since I was six months old – I’m 34 now. She was always into her football, and when I told her about the Gay Games and EuroGames she said she would have loved it. She couldn’t believe I was getting to go and play sport with all these gay people from across the world. It’s nuts.
“I don’t think I realised how special it was when I signed up for it, but I get more sentimental as I get older.
“I’m quite a boisterous character, and I get on really well with guys’ guys because we’re all about the banter. I could see the faces of the people from the LGBTQ+ boxing club when they walked into the gym though, and I had to reassure them that these were the good guys, so I don’t think I realised how important it was to be inclusive.
“Homophobia has never really been an issue for me as a female boxer – I think I would get more grief if I was straight – but at an event like the Gay Games or the EuroGames everybody is just free to be themselves, no matter what that means.
“Nobody bats an eye. Everyone is just being their most authentic selves.
“You have all the colours of the rainbow under one banner, so the most interesting thing about someone is what sport they are doing. It’s important, because it makes people a lot more comfortable who maybe wouldn’t be comfortable in mainstream sports settings, or feel like there’s not a space for them.”
Clare commented: “I’m quite feminine, so people would always assume I was straight. Growing up playing hockey, people thought it was girly with everyone having fake tan and all of that.
“It must have been 2016 or 2017 when the Dutch and Irish teams started meeting up to play against each other, and there were other people like me who were feminine and gay. You didn’t have to be stereotypically ‘butch’ or anything, everyone was just themselves and it was okay.
“At the Gay Games and EuroGames, you could be anything and nobody would care. You don’t have to constantly explain yourself.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly given how pivotal of a role sports played in Natalie and Clare meeting and falling in love, sport continues to be a big part of both of their lives.
While each of them have taken steps back from their respective passions over the last year or two, they have not ruled out a return to a setting like the Gay Games or EuroGames in the future.
Natalie added: “I have technically retired from amateur boxing, but the chances of a comeback are quite high because I miss it.
“My last fight was in October 2022, just after we got married, and I was just sick of being on diets and getting up at 5am to go for a run all the time.
“I thought it was time to call it, and I stopped going to the gym as much because it was difficult to be there with all my mates who were still fighting. It was hard to find my place, and my mental health tanked a bit, but I swung it back around and started going again.
“I did a running challenge during Covid because my dad got a liver transplant, so I wanted to raise some money. Usually you’re on the liver transplant waiting list for 135 days, so over four weeks I ran 135km. Now I’ve signed up for a half-marathon.
“I don’t know if I would go back and play hockey again. I don’t understand the rules of the game, so six years on I would still be running around not knowing what I’m doing.
“I don’t think boxing was in the last Gay Games in Hong Kong, or the EuroGames, but I would go back and do a 10k. Sometimes it’s just nice to try something new – I know people who did boxing but at the same time did swimming or badminton.
“Those competitions are as competitive as you make it. A lot of people are just there to have fun and make a new community, so it’s different from my usual atmosphere where we’re all breeding killers and taking people into the trenches.”
Clare added: “I stopped playing hockey properly last year, but I would go back – I don’t know who for, because I’m now much better pals with the London girls than the Irish team.
“It’s just a good atmosphere to be around. It feels a bit like Pride.”
Pride of the Terraces 
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