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Wembley finals date for Fox duo

24/11/2005

ANTHONY Crolla and Denton Vassell are through to the ABA finals which will be fought at Wembley on Friday 2 December.

Both represent Fox ABC and coach Jimmy Lewis said he cannot recall a small club such as Fox having two boxers in the finals before.

The duo overcame the last hurdles to the finals in bouts at Liverpool Olympia last week.

Crolla who also represents Hopwood Hall College, beat Liam Shinkwin (Bushy) 7-2 in his quarter-final on Thursday. Crolla picked his shots to win all four rounds.

Vassell produced hurtful body shots which resulted in two standing counts for Lee Morris of the Phoenix club in Leicester before the referee declared Vassell a 17-8 winner.

The Fox fighters were back at Olympia the following night for their semi-finals.

Lightweight Crolla was up against Ben Jones (Crawley) a former Golden Gloves champion and an ABA semi-finalist last year.

The strong Jones kept pushing forward, but Crolla kept to his boxing and emerged a 10-2 winner.

Vassell met Patrick McAleese (Cambridge) in what proved a toe-to-toe contest.

Vassell scored well with left-hooks and rights to the head and forced McAleese to take a standing count in the final round. The outcome was a 10-3 win for Vassell.

Coach Lewis said: "This is a tremendous achievement for the lads and the club, and I would like to thank all those who have helped Anthony and Denton to get so far, especially their other coaches."