Boxing: Gowns beaten black and blue by Town

Thursday evening saw the annual Town vs Gown boxing take place in the Guildhall. The event was sold out with a good mix of both town and gown supporters filling the ornate upper hall of the Guildhall.

The programme for the evening was based around 10 fights of various weight categories as some of the less experienced CUABC boxers were given the chance to cut their teeth in front of a large crowd as the club escalates its Varsity campaign. Unusually the evening was  somewhat dominated by the town fighters, with only a late surge avoiding a near whitewash of the University boxers.

Magadlene’s Jack Randall produced a particularly impressive display as he maintained a consistent onslaught on his opponent for three rounds to claim a unanimous points victory while Jasryan Singh Birk, Lampros Litos and Robert Liu all looked assured in taking victory.

Of the defeated university boxers, club captain Stef Lavelle can consider himself somewhat unlucky to have lost out on a split decision in a tightly fought encounter while David Wen delivered some of the best and most entertaining boxing of the night in his narrow defeat to a very good opponent.

The highlight of the night , was undoubtedly the second bout in which Billy Fitton of Downing found himself confronted with a phenomenal boxer from Kettering ABC. With a large Downing contingent in the crowd raising the temperature of the Guildhall, the few moments of stunned silence at the speed and power of the onslaught Fitton’s opponent launched against him were made all the more poignant. It is to Fitton’s great credit that he stayed with his opponent for all three rounds, something that had seemed rather unlikely in the first couple of minutes of the bout. There is little chance that any Oxford boxer has the ability to come anywhere near the quality of Fitton’s opponent in the Guildhall and his recovery in the third round to land a few punches of his own (drawing a cry of ‘don’t make him angry Billy!’ from the crowd) bodes well for Varsity.

The evening was slightly marred by a somewhat tepid atmosphere as even the increasingly desperate pleas of the compere for the crowd to drink more failed to have any real effect. It is unfortunate that given the setting and the quality of some of the boxing on show that the crowd’s engagement in fights, barring the odd occasion, remained minimal. Despite this, it was still an entertaining night of good quality boxing that will undoubtedly be bettered on Sunday 8^th of March, as CUABC travel to Oxford and attempt to reclaim their Varsity crown.