Young Ben robbed of a national title

The 13 year-old Kettering School of Boxing fighter made it through to the finals of the ABA Schoolboy Championships at the London TA Centre but lost on a split points decision against unbeaten Charles Bronx from Hemel Hempstead.

And it was a decision that left the Kettering club’s head coach Clive Hogben fuming.

He said: “We teach our boys at Kettering School of Boxing to be gracious in defeat but eyebrows were raised even from the ringside officials when this result was announced.”

Southpaw Bronx was surprised by the ferocity of Burton’s relentless body attacks. The Peterborough lad had the superior workrate and scored with more cleaner punches while Bronx was guilty of holding on the inside and faded towards the end of all three rounds.

In fact he faded so badly in the last, a different referee would almost certainly have given him a standing eight count when getting caught so often.

To reach the finals and go one further than last year, Burton outwitted a good quality boxer in Caiden Hughes from Cheshunt in a thrilling semi-final.

PETERBOROUGH POLICE ABC

Peterborough Police Amateur Boxing Club star Artur Tomasevic had progressed to the quarter-finals of the National Youth Championships but his run was ended in Billericay by the impressive Karol Itavuma from St Mary’s ABC in Kent.

Tomasevic lost on points in a quality bout against a classy four-times national champion.

Peterborough Police coach Cris Baker said: “Artur did himself and the club proud. Boxing is a learning game and we’re always learning. Artur is a quality boxer and will only come back better from this loss.”

Peterborough Police Amateur Boxing Club had three winners at the annual Cambs Police dinner show at the Burgess Hall in St Ives.

Young Imraan Shirazi set the ball rolling with a unanimous points win over Jay Tanner from March ABC.

Shirazi (11), from Bretton, showed great skills against a tough, well-schooled opponent.

At senior level there were also unanimous points wins for Kieran Cocker (18) from Orton and Jack Bristowe (19) from Holbeach.

Cocker beat tough southpaw C. Redford from Skegness while Bristowe outboxed S. Simpson from March ABC.

Peterborough pair Mohammad Khan (15) and Imran Aref (17) were both unlucky to miss out on split decisions - Khan against K. Hobson from Exhall ABC and Aref against Ivan Mihailov from the Fenland Sparta ABC.

Cocker and Aref won best winner and runner-up of the night trophies respectively.

In skills bouts there were good perforamces from 10 year-old Alfie Baker from Stanground against Esha Singh from Exhall ABC and 14 year-old Connor Dane from Newborough against R. Jones, also from the Exhall club.