Young’s debut dismantled in Irvine by Tom Walker Mar 3rd 2007

Andrew Young's much anticipated professional debut came unstuck last night in the Volunteer Rooms in Irvine, Ayrshire. The venue is regularly used by the Rotary Club to put on their annual boxing dinner for charity, with the aid of Tommy Gilmour. This is the twentieth such function and is eagerly awaited by the black tie audience of businessmen of Ayrshire each year. Last night saw about two hundred of them filling the relatively small venue. One blot on the landscape was the performance of the “comedian”, who for the sake of his career, I'll conveniently omit to name since he started off badly and deteriorated thereafter. Fortunately for the audience, the rest of the evening went well and charity benefited from the auction under the very capable control of M.C. Craig Stephen. Andrew Young of Inverness (14st 1lb) was matched with John Anthony of Doncaster (14st 3.5lb) on his debut over 6 x 2mins in the paid ranks. Anthony had 4 wins on his 6 fight ledger and that alone indicated that he was not there to make up the numbers for anyone's debut. Young started off well, with no signs of nerves and boxing behind his jab and follow up rights with which he caught the Yorkshire man on several occasions. However, Anthony is a rugged sort of box/fighter and is aggressive enough to unsettle the fluidity of Young's work, and it shows as he puts the Inverness man down for a standing count at the 1 minute 30 sec mark with a thunderous right hook. Young's composure hadn't had time to recover and he didn't cover up or hold his opponent, with the result he got caught with another thunderbolt which put him down on the canvas very heavily. A combination of the shot and the fact that he went down so heavily, meant that referee Paul Graham dispensed with the count as it was obvious that Young wasn't going to get up even if Paul had counted to 50. The doctors in attendance were straight in to tend to the prostrate figure, fortunately he was up and on his feet if somewhat wobbly after a couple of minutes. Young will have learned a valuable lesson from his debut, and now knows for certain that in the professional ranks there is a world of difference from the amateur code. He'd boxed initially as I'd seen him on numerous occasions, in the conventional style of a points scoring amateur. In the amateurs he could leave his chin a bit exposed as there were few challengers to someone of his size, not so in the other code. Next up on the bill was another man from the capital of the Highlands, Sandy Bartlett (9st 3lb) in a 6 x 2min contest with Furhan Rafiq of Glasgow (9st 1lb) again with Paul Graham in charge of the action. Rafiq is a bundle of energy personified, and is using neat and fast work to the counter-punching of Bartlett. He (Rafiq) is simply outworking the Inverness man, although Bartlett's shots are the heavier of the two! In the second round Bartlett does take his corner's advice and goes on the offensive to possibly take the round. It is short lived though and he's back to the counter punching by the end of this salvo. Both boys are making good use of the right hooks, but it is Bartlett's face that is showing signs of wear. He (Bartlett), seems almost pedestrian by comparison to the work-rate of Rafiq and looked to be out of sorts from, previous showings. In the end no-one could quibble over Paul Graham's scoring of the bout to Rafiq with a score of 59-56. The final bout saw Mark Hastie of Motherwell (10st 4lb) matched with perennial warhorse Peter “Desperate” Dunn of Pontefract in Yorkshire (10st 9lb). Dunn has had 83 trips to the professional ring and is a rugged if somewhat unconventional fighter. He's the perennial show-saver by coming in at short notice and giving his all. His style is hardly silky, but is erratically explosive with overhand hooks which if they land would test the resolve of any welter weight. Hastie by comparison, is relatively new with only 4 previous professional bouts but has more to offer in the way of boxing ability than the Yorkshireman. Hastie is taller than Dunn and this difference is exacerbated by Dunn's crouching style. Hastie though will have to learn how to deal with such stuffy fighters as he progresses in the professional ranks. He always looked in control of the bout, but there was always the danger of one of Desperate Dunn's bombs landing on target, had it done so, the result could have upset the applecart. In the end though Hastie got the result he deserved and came out a winner on points 59-56. Dunn was magnanimous in defeat as he (Dunn) moves inexorably towards his century.

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