A former Stretford High School student has won a glittering Army prize, topping off a superb year of sporting achievements.
Lance Corporal Alicia Jarman’s stunning sports prowess plus her outstanding diligence as a soldier has been rewarded with her receiving The Spirit of the Regiment Trophy for the German-based 1 Armoured Division Signal Regiment (1ADSR).
Alicia, aged 22, was selected for Great Britain’s National Bobsleigh Squad for the World Championships, she became the Women’s Army Welterweight Champion at the ABA England Boxing Championships and competed as a sprinter in the Army Athletics Championships.
Her nomination also stressed that she was also “beyond reproach in conducting herself and completing tasks to the highest order, both in barracks and on Exercise. She can be relied upon wholeheartedly by her hierarchy, piers and subordinates alike.”
“If ever there was a soldier who encompassed the meaning of Spirit of the Regiment, without a doubt it is Lance Corporal Jarman.” It concludes.
“I had forgotten many of the things I had done till they read them out. It came as a bit of a shock to get the reward,” said Alicia who received her trophy from the Regiment’s Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Paterson. 

“My first sporting love was athletics. And I was a member of Trafford Athletics Club. I like challenges,” confessed Alicia, whose father David Jarman lives in Streford.
Alicia, a former Toys R Us sales girl, who is now a Signals Area Operator, said: “Someone approached me to try the Bobsleigh and I went for a trial at Bath. I was chosen and we were second in the Army Championships – even beating some of the men – and individually we won as a female team and we were the top Army team individually in the World Championships,” she said.
Alicia, who joined the Army in 2003, served as a communications specialist at Banja Luka In Bosnia in 2005-6.
“I was in two minds whether to join the Police or the Army, but one of the Pathfinder career weeks with the Army decided me that that was what I wanted,” she said.
She received the award on her last day with 1 ADSR, who are based at Herford in North West Germany,  and is relishing the idea of fresh challenges in her new posting to 30 Signal Regiment in Nuneaton.
Her sister Lance Corporal Hayley Gates also serves with the Army in Germany with 1 Close Support Medical Regiment at Munster.