Hampshire firefighters and police officers have weighed in ahead of a charity boxing match for Help For Heroes and CLIC Sargent charities.

The teams were inspired to take part by Hampshire Constabulary colleagues Sgt Steve Bowen and PC Celine Bowen.

Their one-year-old son Joseph suffers from a rare form of leukaemia.

CLIC Sargent supports children with cancer and their families. Sgt Bowen said: "The support's been amazing and it's overwhelming."

'It's overwhelming'

His wife, PC Bowen, said: "Joseph was diagnosed with infant acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in April last year.

"For the past nine months he's received very intensive chemotherapy at Southampton hospital.

"He's moved on to his maintenance phase of his treatment, he's responded really, really well and hopefully his treatment will be finishing the middle of next year."

The two teams, consisting of 16 firefighters and 16 police officers, met for a pre-event weigh-in and were given the chance to spar ahead of their match on 10 March.

The event will be held at Oceana nightclub in Leisure World, Southampton.

PC Andrew Darbyshire said: "We've been up early in the morning, we've been running around the Hampshire countryside, we've been eating raw eggs, we're pretty fit."

Firefighter Paul Jarrett said: "The police seem to be putting a lot of training into it.

"The teams seem to be quite evenly matched, but historically the fire services have always won this event."

Read More...........
Reproduced under licence from BBC News © 2011 BBC