IT was standing room only at The Forum last Friday as Furness Catholic ABC’s members got the chance to show off their skills in their hometown on the club’s annual show.

A total of nine male and female boxers from the Dalkeith Street gym were in action on the 13-fight card, with seniors Rowan Urmston and Sam Elliot both scoring victories.

Urmston’s bout with Shawaize Hussain, of Premier Bolton, was shaping up to be a keenly-contested match-up after round one, but his opponent was stopped early in the second due to suffering a right-shoulder injury after being knocked down by the Furness fighter.

Elliot’s contest with Widnes ABC’s Harry Craig went the full three rounds and it was the home fighter who was having his hand raised by the referee at the end.

Some judicious punching and good movement from Elliot proved key to him taking control of the contest and ultimately saw all three judges score it in his favour.

Meanwhile, Ryan Gilroy and Sean O’Conner were both unfortunate to suffer split-decision defeats to Nathan Forrest and Will Butterworth respectively.

Gilroy and Barnard Castle ABC’s Forrest got stuck into each other straight from the opening bell and were still going toe-to-toe when the senior contest came to a close after three rounds. However, Woods just got the nod from the judges.

It was a similar story for O’Conner in his closely-fought junior contest against Cleator Moor ABC’s Butterworth, which could have gone either way but saw the visiting boxer get the verdict.

Two other Furness juniors were in action on the card, with Charlotte Clarke up against another Barnard Castle boxer in Charlotte Burns, with the latter gaining a unanimous decision win, and Sam Kay suffered a unanimous decision loss to Louis Woods (Ancoats ABC).

There were four contests involving junior Furness boxers taking their first steps in sport too, with Micah Thorne, Evie Wharton, Kian O’Neill and Darryl Mutton opening proceedings with non-scoring skills bouts against Paige Fielden (Barnard Castle ABC), Aisha Afzal (Tigers Gym), Alfie Govans (Workington ABC) and Rhys Johnson (Kendal ABC) respectively.

Elsewhere on the card, Craig Noon (Widnes ABC) took a unanimous decision win over Tom Greenwood (Border City ABC), Alfie Poole (Whitehaven ABC) triumphed in an all-action bout with Royal Fusilier Sam Warrel, and Blackburn & Darwen ABC’s Awais Khan defeated Lewis Baldwin (Kendal ABC).