HAVING represented your country at netball and javelin, entering the prize fighter arena is not the next logical step.

But that is exactly what Kelly Morgan is trying to achieve.

The 34-year-old is no stranger to sporting success. She has worn the Red Rose of England playing netball, she went to Kuala Lumpur for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and claimed a bronze in the javelin.

Morgan was also the British record holder for six years and likened to two icons of javelin - Fatima Whitbread and Tessa Sanderson.

But injury to her shoulder meant that she was forced to hang up her javelin before she fulfilled her potential.

However, the former Senior Sergeant in the Elite Royal Army Physical Training Corps went on to live a dream that she had harboured from the age of five and stepped into the square circle.

Boxing in the light-middleweight division, she reached the final of the ABAs in 2007 before being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

During her time in the Gulf and the troubled state, Morgan was flown into the frontline and helped with the rehabilitation of injured soldiers.

Once leaving the services in 2012, Morgan settled in Swindon and resumed her netball career playing for Raychem.

But that wasn’t enough for her and she is now trained by Kelvin Young’s former trainer Richard Farnan, securing her professional boxing licence last Wednesday (May 6 )and has signed with Greenbridge-based manager Keith Mayo.

“I love my boxing,” said Morgan, who will make her debut on the Next Generation show at the Grange Drive Community Centre on June 27.

“The support and the goodwill from the boxers in this area, I have been blown away.

“I do some with Paul Rogers at Scrappers, also Alan Reed, also a big mention to the Arena gym and Steve Murtough, who immediately pushed forward a substantial amount of funding to help me go for my licence.

“Whilst I was at the Arena, Kelvin was down doing some sparring and he was kind enough let me get in the ring with him.

“Then he said if I had thought about going professional, I said I’d love to.

“But I didn’t know whether I had that ability and I didn’t know where to start.

“He spoke to Keith and said that he should take a look at me and it has gone from there.”

Morgan is hoping to go before the British Boxing Board next month where she then hopes to start her journey to succeeding in another sporting arena.

“I had to go in front of the boxing panel in London, where I had a load of questions fired at me to ascertain if I was fit enough,” she said.

Morgan said she had wanted to box since the age of five after seeing her father fight for the Army.

“First things first was getting the licence, now that has happened Keith is putting me on his Swindon show,” Morgan said.

“Unlike the male boxing scene there are that many professional female boxers so the route to title fights is a lot shorter.

“I’m at the very start of this, but the aim is to do well in my early fights and get to a European title, that is what we are looking at.”