Aberdeen’s Treetops Hotel was the venue for the semi-finals of the Scottish Amateur Boxing Senior Championships on Friday the 5th March. The annual event on the Northern District boxing calendar was organised by Kincorth ABC’s Norman Watt.
A large crowd of Aberdeen’s business community were wined and dined before the boxing, ensuring another successful evening, with the cream of amateur boxing in Scotland in their respective weight divisions providing the punch.
The show opened with a local contest outwith the championships between two young local schoolboy boxers, Billy Stewart of Aberdeen ABC and David Dalziel of Peterhead ABC over 3 x 1 min rounds. Dalziel won a closely fought bout on points.
The second bout was a quarter final between Brian Peacock of Barrhead and Robert Kaminsky of Denny at 75kgs. This bout came up because amateur boxers can’t box more than twice in 24 hours and they’d had two bouts at the preliminaries. Peacock won 10-5 on points with the greater accuracy in his punches.
3rd bout of the show was the 1st of the semi-finals at 60kgs between Sean Dick of Paisley and Lewis Benson of Queensferry. Dick’s non-stop style unsettled the normally fluid Benson who had reach and height advantage, and Dick duly won with a score of 15-8.
The 2nd semi-final at 60kgs featured Ryan Smith of Barrhead and Callum Susans of Dunfermline. Dick’s counter punching to Susan’s attacks was effective enough in this closely fought all action bout, and he duly won on points by 9-3.
The 69kgs opening semi-final featured Ryan Hamilton of Hillpark in Bannockburn against Garry Collins of Queensferry. This was a very hard fought bout between two well matched boxers, but two standing counts quickly followed by a third in round 2 forced the referee to call a halt with Hamilton piling on the pressure on the brave Collins.
The other semi-final at 69kgs had George Thomson of Stirling against Tommy Philbin of Lochend. Philbin showed his full range of skills both offensively and defensively in the face of sustained pressure from Thomson and he needed the latter, since Thomson was non-stop aggression. With a very close 5-4 score line Thomson took the decision in the bout of the night.
The initial 81kgs semi-final had Kevin McAllum of Dunfermline matched with Kevin Bruce of Kingdom in an all Fife bout. Bruce’s accuracy with his overhand right brought the bout to a close in the opening round with McAllum suffering from a suspected broken nose and the referee stopping the bout.
The show closed with the other 81kgs semi-final between David Nelson of Kinross matched with Scott Hartley of Alloa. This was a fairly tousled affair with neither dominating, though Hartley was doing most of the attacking while Nelson countered. In the end Hartley progressed by 21-20 on the count back after the scores were tied at 10-10 at the end of the bout
The final of the 91+kgs will be fought between Michael McDonagh of Port Glasgow and Gary Cornish of Inverness when both their opponents failed to appear and they were both given a walk-over into the final.
