She Kicks Back: Copeland’s Boxing Clever (Stacey Copeland interview)

Stacey Copeland retired from football at twenty-nine after years of injuries and immediately picked up boxing gloves. Now thirty-four, she is a European silver medallist, Nations Cup gold medallist and three-time ABA national champion with forty fights behind her. She played for Doncaster Belles, Manchester City, Stockport County and Tranmere Rovers as well as in the United States and Sweden, and names England Under-18s, a Women’s FA Cup final and a Charity Shield among her best days. Boxing was always in the family – her father was a professional and her grandfather runs their club – but it was not legal for women to compete when she was young. She now works in a school and speaks passionately about visible female role models.