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“I’ve heard her voice in training sometimes,” Callum Simpson says quietly as looks up in his apartment in Dewsbury and remembers his sister Lily-Rae who, just over four months ago, died tragically following an accident on a quad bike at the age of 19. “I hear her when the sessions are hard, especially during running sessions, and her voice will say: ‘Just keep going, keep pushing.’”
West Yorkshire looks beautiful on a bitterly cold yet sunlit morning. A new year has just begun, and there is still snow on the ground, but the same raw pain churns though Simpson. The 28-year-old boxer is a composed and impressive man who will defend his British and Commonwealth super-middleweight titles against Steed Woodall in Sheffield on Saturday night. It is likely to be a difficult test against a determined domestic rival who has lost only two of 22 bouts – particularly as Simpson and his family are still besieged by grief.
But Simpson, who has won all 15 of his previous fights, believes he is ready to return to the ring and honour the memory of his sister. “I know myself really well,” he says. “My coach Mark Hurley said: ‘If there’s any point I feel you’re not mentally right, you’re not fighting.’ I said: ‘That’s absolutely fine. I agree.’ But I’m confident in myself because I know my character. I’m very strong mentally.
“My promoters, Boxxer, told us it would be fine if I had an eight- or 10-round fight but I said: ‘No, we’ve just won the British and Commonwealth titles. What happened to Lily is bad enough but she would want me to carry on.’ I know I made her proud through my boxing, and I want to continue doing that. The best way is by defending my titles against a good opponent.”
On 3 August 2024, at Barnsley’s football ground, Oakwell, in his beloved home town, Simpson comprehensively outpointed the former champion Zak Chelli to win those famous old belts. All his family, including Lily-Rae, were in the delirious crowd singing his name as Simpson’s father, brother and girlfriend joined him in the ring.
“They were all crying,” Simpson says with a grin. “I was the only one not crying and I thought: ‘Should I be having tears?’ But, for me, there was no reason to cry then. I were just enjoying it, soaking it all up.”
Simpson’s smile fades into a tangled expression. “I obviously had no idea that, two and a half weeks later, Lily would be gone for ever.”
His father, Donny, arrives at the apartment. Callum and I have been talking for almost an hour and I feel bad that, having covered so much else about his life and career, his dad should walk in just as we begin to address the death of Lily-Rae. The boxer had warned that “my dad is a very emotional person and he will definitely cry when he talks to you”.
So we initially discuss his relationship with Callum and how he used to coach his son’s football team in Barnsley. But Callum soon wanted to follow him to the boxing gym – which Donny found after he moved from Huddersfield.
Callum and his brother, Bradley, both showed talent as boxers. Bradley, who is now a model, had better footwork but he didn’t like being hit. Callum was far grittier and showed the resolve to become a proper fighter. Donny pushed his son hard, but with great love.
“I cry at every one of his fights,” Donny says, “and he takes the mickey out of me. But the reason I cry is because nobody else saw him as a nine-year-old running at six in the morning. I know how hard and how long he worked for this.”
Donny and Callum make it easy for me to ask about Lily-Rae. “She was very sassy, bubbly, happy, sarcastic,” Callum says. “Since the fight [in August] I’ve had loads of people message me. They said: ‘We were lucky enough to sit near your sister. She didn’t stop singing all night. She was so proud of you.’
“She was one of us, the Simpsons, and we’re an amazing family. Polite, well-mannered, but full of jokes. Lily used to work at this clothing store, Tessuti, in Meadowhall. I worked at Tessuti in Leeds while I had my first 10 fights as a pro. One of my best friends, Matt, was her manager. I used to ring him and say: ‘How’s Lily getting on?’ He’d say: ‘She’s just like you. Cheeky. But she gets away with it.’ She was such a likable character.”
Donny smiles: “She could really take the mick out of you and then just [flutter] those beautiful eyes. But she could also have a moan. Every time she went out, drinking with her mates, people came up and said: ‘Are you Callum Simpson’s sister?’ She didn’t want to be known as just Callum’s sister.
“Anyway, somebody else came up: ‘Are you Callum Simpson’s sister?’ Yeah, yeah. Why? ‘Oh, you can tell by your nose.’ She went: ‘You what?’ The poor guy was saying: ‘I don’t mean nothing by it!’ When she came home she were absolutely livid, fuming, saying: ‘Everybody in town thinks I’ve got a big nose. Callum’s getting hit in the nose all the time. Look at me putting makeup on and all they can see is Callum’s big nose.’”
Did she eventually laugh about it? “Oh yeah,” Donny says. “She weren’t really upset. I would tell her: ‘You’re beautiful. You’ve got the Simpson nose. Take it.’”
Lily-Rae and her friend went to the Greek island of Zakynthos on Saturday 10 August, exactly a week after she watched Callum become a dual champion. “We got a call on the Sunday,” Donny remembers. “It was the mum of Michaela, Lily’s friend, and she told me the girls had had an accident on a quad bike. Lily was critical and they had flown her from Zante to Athens.”
Before Donny and Kirsten, his partner and Lily’s mother, flew to Greece he called his eldest son. “I was away in Palma with my girlfriend, Daniela,” Callum says, “and when my dad told me about Lily on the back of a quad I was thinking: ‘Oh, what an idiot!’ Even though my dad said it sounds really bad I was sure she would be all right.”
Donny felt the same. “I never thought she were going to die,” he says, his eyes swimming with tears. “Even when we finally got to the hospital and the doctor said she’s really critical I still believed it would be OK. At her bedside I said: ‘Come on, Lily, you can pull through, you’re a Simpson, we’re fighters.’
“Six days later they said: ‘She’s stable, but she needs an operation on her neck.’ She had broken so many bones – her neck, collarbone, ribs, sternum, her hip. She had a collapsed lung and there was concern she had a brain injury.”
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Donny wipes his eyes. “But, honestly, her face was unmarked. She looked normal – apart from the wires and the tube down her throat. She was in an induced coma and the operation on her neck went well. They just didn’t know about brain damage yet. But before they could wake her there was another operation. A trachy?”
The 54-year-old father looks helplessly at his son. “A tracheostomy,” Callum confirms. “Yeah. But there was a complication during the operation. That’s when it happened.”
When Donny and Kirsten arrived at the hospital the following day, for their usual short visit to intensive care, they were told there had been a major problem during surgery. They were shown into an office. “We were crying,” Donny says, “and three men came in. They must have been surgeons because they had masks on. I don’t think they could speak English. They shook their heads as if to say it was over.”
Donny shudders. “We just screamed the place down.”
Callum was back in England and consumed with worry. “I was still trying to keep going so I was in the gym when my dad called. I said: ‘You all right?’ He were just crying his eyes out, saying: ‘She’s gone, she’s gone.’ He was hysterical but it was almost like I didn’t feel anything. I just went back on the bag and carried on punching. I had to finish my three rounds.
“As I was punching I were thinking: ‘Was that conversation a dream? Did my dad just tell me that Lily died?’ My mind wouldn’t let me believe it. So I rang my dad back. He told me again but I was still in disbelief.”
Callum is the calmest member of the family and, after he absorbed the terrible truth, he broke the heart-breaking news to his three other siblings. Kirsten returned home to England and Callum joined his dad in Greece as, over the next two weeks, he sorted out all the administrative complexities that accompany a death in another country. “He did everything,” Donny says. “He were amazing.” Callum deflects the praise: “I just felt a responsibility to help my dad.”
Donny has since been at every sparring session Callum has had while readying himself for battle against Woodall. Normally Donny is very nervous but, this time, he surges with conviction. “I don’t think it will go past seven rounds. That’s how confident I am in Callum.”
For the fighter, these last days before he steps into the ring are a time for deeper reflection. He shows me a photograph of the whole family, including Lily, taken the day after he won his last fight. “We went out as a family for a meal in Barnsley and had no idea it would be the last time we were all together.”
Callum shares another photograph of him and Lily smiling and holding his British and Commonwealth belts. “It’s on top of the cupboard where I keep all my protein [shakes]. Every morning I go to that cupboard and I look up and smile at Lily in the photo.”
Donny also smiles when Callum reveals that “I’ve got a little tribute to Lily on my fight kit for Saturday. I’ve got Lily-Rae on the front instead of Simpson and then on the back I normally have Callum Simpson and the CS logo. But I’ve had her own logo made. It says Lily-Rae Simpson and LRS on the back of my jacket. Her favourite colours were blue and green. So I’ve got lilies fading in the background and green and blue crystals as the pollen.
“It’s something special in her memory. After the fight, and a good win, I want to get them framed for my dad. Sometimes you feel so helpless but all I can do is keep her memory alive. Anything I do in life, especially with boxing, I now want to be a bit of a tribute to her. The pain will never go away but hopefully it gets easier and we can still enjoy life, like Lily did, and do so many good things in her memory.”
Callum Simpson v Steed Woodall is live on Sky Sports Main Event on Saturday from 7.30pm
