A regional sports reporter is being regularly punched in the face – all in the name of feature writing.

Matt Westby, from the Grimsby Telegraph, has signed up to eight weeks of punishing boxing training.

He is chronicling his 90-minute, twice-weekly training sessions in a weekly column and online video.

The pugilistic feature was inspired by a four-week crash course in golf he undertook for the Telegraph last year.

Matthew, (24), said: “I struggled with the golf to be honest but it made for some decent copy.

“I wanted to do something similar this year so I thought I would go in at the deep end and picked something that would be challenging.

“We’re in the video journalism age and boxing lends itself quite well to that.”

Matt’s first training session at Grimsby Amateur Boxing Club was a double eye-opener.

Not only did he learn about the true level of his current fitness but he also experienced for the first time what it’s like to be punched repeatedly in the face.

Matt (above right) added: “It didn’t put me off – it was a bit of an adrenaline rush.

“When he first caught me, I didn’t know if that was meant to happen in a sparring session. My first reaction was to look around, but the other guy just got on with it.

“I thought I had a decent base level of fitness but I have done three sessions at the boxing club and been found out.

“Fitness in one sport is not fitness in boxing. It’s incredibly demanding.”

If all goes well, Matt is hoping to do a point-scoring boxing bout at the end of the eight-weeks training and may carry on the training once the feature is over.