Guernsey’s Adam Baker and Jersey’s Tommy Frame stand toe-to-toe in one of the six inter-island matches. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0723823)
AMALGAMATED Boxing Club head coach Graham Guilbert may have his knuckles rapped for billing six of Saturday’s big open show fights as Channel Islands championship contests.
‘I expect a letter from the ABA [Amateur Boxing Association] to say we’re not allowed to call it a championship,’ admitted Guilbert after the dust settled on another fantastically successful evening’s boxing at Beau Sejour.
‘But we can call it a CI competition,’ said the man who picked up the baton of a suggested revival of CI title fights after their absence for half a century.
The problem with official CI championships is that the Channel Islands has long lost its area status under the sport’s national umbrella body.
Guernsey and Jersey box under the jurisdiction of the Western Counties.
But Guilbert does not see it as a major problem.
He is pressing ahead with the project and looking into purchasing boxing belts to be presented to the best in the islands.
‘It would be nice to be made official, but we will have to wait and see the outcome of this.’
Throughout the build-up and on the night itself, the theme of the evening was the long overdue return of inter-island title bouts.
MC Liam McKenna, as entertaining as ever, propagated the inter-island theme with regular reminders that CI crowns were at stake.
Also boxer after boxer from Guernsey, Jersey and Alderney spoke of their delight to be part of a big inter-island show.
Guilbert expects the next show to feature inter-island title contests will be in Jersey.
‘Dave [Thompson] wants to hold it over there next year.
‘It’s all part of doing more work together, having training weekends as well.’
Jersey Leonis head coach Thompson was impressed by the set-up at Beau Sejour, while not particularly happy with some of the decisions which went against his boxers.
‘We did feel Tommy [Frame] had won, but this is amateur boxing and not all the decisions will go your way. Some you win, some you lose.
‘It’s one of those sports.
‘But Tommy boxed very well and he was unfortunate not to get the decision.’
Thompson thought the evening a great success.
‘I thoroughly enjoyed it and the kids enjoyed it too,’ he said.
‘I thought the atmosphere was electric.’
Thompson is keen to see the three island boxing communities working more closely together and was disappointed there were not more inter-island contests. ‘We originally had 12 [inter-island] bouts but then things started to go wrong.’
He said the confusion as to whether they were official title bouts or not had played a part in the defeat of Jersey’s Southern Counties representative boxer Ben Murray, who came close in his bout with London’s Jamie Homer, but ran out of time in the three two-minute rounds.
Thompson said: ‘Ben was very unfortunate and I think the decision was very debatable.
‘It was a close points decision.
‘One of the problems is that he expected to box three three-minute rounds, but they [the ABA] would not accept that.’
Article posted on 25th February, 2009 - 2.30pm
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