Ringside Report Takes a Closer Look at British Female Fighter Stacey Copeland

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By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Fought five times and won five times – hardly merits a mention does it?

But this is a boxer like few others.

She has not only fought professionally and never lost, she has boxed for her country as well as representing it at soccer. Oh, and she has a TED talk and founded a charity.

Slightly more impressive now? But wait till you see her in the ring…

Essex born, Stacey Copeland, 5-0, 2 KO’s, is an amazing study and a fantastic story. For many who have heard her speak and know her story, inspirational is simply not too big a word for her. The 38 year old light middleweight based in Manchester, fighting out of Ricky Hatton’s gym, made history in 2018 when she became the very first British female fighter to hold the Commonwealth title. It came in only her 5th fight and followed a stellar amateur career where she won, in 2014 a silver medal at the European Championships in Bucharest.

Her professional debut happened on the 16th June 2017 when she faced Borislava Gornaova in a four round points win. She went on to record another three wins before going to Harare in Zimbabwe – no short and safe trip for anyone in the recent past – and taking on Mapule Ngubane for the very first Commonwealth title fight for women at that light middleweight.

The fight was one that drew little attention worldwide, but we all had our eyes on it in the UK. Copeland managed a unanimous 10 round win with impressive scores of 98–91, 98–93 and 97–92.

With the win, history had been made.

This was the destiny she had been training hard to achieve. Becoming the first and being a woman. With this in mind she, in 2017, founded the charity, Pave the Way, which challenges gender stereotypes, sparks social change and is attempting to make a real difference. Its focus is to promote women and girls into sport and given that its founder has joined two of the most male dominated sports in the business successfully it’s not hard to see why this may be yet another success for her.

Her voice is also one that has become familiar to those who want to see some deep and profound change. Copeland has spoken, not just in schools and in groups all over the United Kingdom but has spoken to the European Parliament and the United Nations. Imagine that, a boxer who can dig and who is also able to speak both eloquently and to a modern agenda!

Making her career boxing, came after she had played football for England and in an FA Cup Final – the pinnacle of an English soccer season. As a player for the Under 18s in England she not only played at home but also represented her country abroad in America and in Sweden. Both would have had a formative influence on her returning to the US to speak but also travelling to Zimbabwe to bring back the Commonwealth belt.

Copeland chose to play football because at the time, female was illegal in the UK so there was little point in becoming a professional boxer. It could be argued that she had boxing in her blood as her father, Eddie, had a brief 11 fight professional career in the early eighties, but is a former ABA amateur national champion. The switch to boxing came in 2010 and by 2011 she started her amateur career and following in her father’s footsteps she became a national champion. She then repeated that feat on a further two occasions making her a three time amateur female boxing champion in the United Kingdom.

It’s quite awe inspiring how much she manages to do as she is also a presenter on Radio Manchester for The Dead Good Show and also an outreach worker for young people at a school in Didsbury in England. The amount of barriers that she faced as she grew up and wanted to play football, box and just do what she felt was right for her were innumerable. Given that female boxing was illegal when she started, even at football she had to cut her hair to get into the boy’s football teams and pretend she was a boy to be accepted, it is remarkable to see her achieve so much.

Now, though, she is leading the vanguard but I will leave you with her own words, given in an interview recently when she said, “I was made to feel like there was something ‘wrong’ with me as a youngster because I was a girl who loved football and boxing, so now I want to be the role model I did not have growing up.”

Well what a role model she has become…

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