Siobhan Haley: “I want to be a world champion, and hopefully, undisputed. But I also want to inspire the younger generation that will come through and show the other girls that they can do it too.”

Siobhan Haley: “I want to be a world champion, and hopefully, undisputed. But I also want to inspire the younger generation that will come through and show the other girls that they can do it too.”

It had been a beyond day of excessive travel for Siobhan Haley. The previous few days had seen the long trek to Sombor in Serbia, rewarded with a gold medal at the Nation’s Cup in Sombor. Fight number forty-one had brought yet another victory. But with only five defeats on her resume, winning that under 57kg title was probably what she expected.

“I’m really happy, I beat three good girls. I had three good fights. It was a good experience for me,” Haley told me over Zoom after that long day of travel had finally ended. “I felt I was going to win, I had full belief in myself. But I knew it would be hard. Last year, I was fighting in the age above, but now I am fighting in my age group. Fighting people my own age and it has shown. I am finding it much easier now.”

Haley, who boxes out of the Platinum Boxing Club in Bradford, started her boxing career at an early age.

“When I was about eight, my brother used to box. One day, my dad just asked me if I wanted to come down to the boxing gym for a change, and I said, “Why not?” To be honest, when I first started boxing, I disliked it. I didn’t really enjoy it. But my dad wasn’t bothered that I didn’t like it. But just before lockdown, my brother stopped boxing, but I continued to do it. I wasn’t too bothered about it until after lockdown. I went into the School Nationals, I lost in the first two finals, but then I trained for the full year after that and won the next one. I then went to the Tri-Nations, where I won gold in Slovenia.”

That early apathy and more for her new craft quickly subsided, and very quickly, Haley found success. The love for and that success in boxing the 15-year-old attributes to a number of things. “I think it was getting more confident with my boxing and having the right people around me,” Haley relayed to FightPost. “It’s also how hard I pushed myself. You push yourself harder in a sport that you want to do. As I got better and started getting better, that was when I realised this is what I wanted to do.”

Boxing will undoubtedly play a major part in the life of Siobhan Haley, a sport that already gives her so much. “It keeps me really fit and healthy,” Haley says of boxing. “A lot of kids my age just go out with their mates and don’t really do much. I get up every morning at 8 and go training for a couple of hours and then I’ll come home and have something to eat and then I go back to the gym again at 5 with all the lads.”

Haley is inspired by many fighters. Stars of the present, and stars of the future.

“I look up to quite a few boxers. Sky Nicolson, she is a southpaw like myself. Elise Glynn, who is on Team GB. Katie Taylor is the biggest name out there she has done so much for women’s boxing and also Amanda Serrano.”

Despite still being in her formative years, Haley is looking ahead. An incredibly ambitious fighter, with thoughts of Olympic gold medals and world titles. “I want to win another European title, and next year, I am hoping to go to the Youth Olympics,” Haley told me. “Since I started boxing, it’s always been a dream of mine to go to the Olympics, but it wouldn’t be just to participate, I want to go there to try and win the gold medal. But if I didn’t go to the next Olympics and I wasn’t on the pathway for the 2032 Olympics, I would probably then turn professional.

“I want to be a world champion, and hopefully, undisputed. But I also want to inspire the younger generation that will come through and show the other girls that they can do it too. Obviously, when I first started, women’s boxing was only starting, so the only person anyone had really heard of was Katie Taylor. But now there are a lot more bigger names out there.”    

Siobhan Haley has achieved so much in a short space of time. Honours and plaudits on the domestic and international stage. But Haley wants more, and she is extremely confident of achieving even greater success. Another fighter who you sense will secure the future of women’s boxing.