Home advantage for junior ABA stars

The West Midlands' junior ABA amateur title hopefuls will enjoy home advantage when they box in the national semi-finals later this month.

The 15 Midlands champions, with seven from Birmingham, will face their counterparts from Yorkshire at the Great Barr Leisure Centre on April 17.

Class three - fighters born in 1995 - will see the highly-rated Jack Wood from Wednesbury ABC, who impressed in beating James Foster from Retford ABC in a unanimous points decision to qualify, represent the Black Country at light welterweight.

Featherweight Tion Gibbs, lightweight Liam Shiels and middleweight Aaron Lovell will also compete for the Eastside, Nechells Green and St Francis clubs in Birmingham respectively.

In class four - boxers born in 1994 - bantamweight Liam Etheridge boxes out of Pleck ABC in a division that includes four Birmingham fighters.

Nechells Green's light flyweight Samuel Holt and lightweight Faisal Anjum of Aston ABC are also involved, along with Small Heath ABC's talented light middleweight Yousaf Khan and big heavyweight Daniel Nelson from the Studio ABC in Kings Norton.

The most senior fighters on the bill - class five, boxers born in 1993 - will see five West Midlands starlets join Eastside's bantamweight Cori Gibbs.

Wednesbury's Dale Doody will box at light flyweight with James Beech, of the Wildstar ABC in Walsall, at featherweight and Thomas Howell, of the famed William Perry ABC in Tipton, at light welterweight.

They join welterweight Josh Stokes of Wodensborough ABC and Warley ABC's Samuel Eggington in class six.

There could be as many as 36 fights on the bill, which will take place on the Sunday afternoon, to determine who will qualify for the semi-finals.