Islington Boxing Club had three winners in the national pre quarter-finals of the England Boxing Development Championships at the weekend.

London champions met their rivals from the Southern Counties at Turner’s Boxing Academy in Camberley, with Masood Abdullah up first for Islington.

Abdullah was in action in the Class B, under-60k group and recorded his second stoppage in the championships against Joel Forte (Moneyfields ABC).

The taller Forte struck first with a hard shot on Masood, but the Islington boxer came back and soon began to wear down Forte, landing strong lefts and rights to the head and body and the referee gave two standing eight counts in the opening round before waving it off.

Slavisa Gegic received a low blow in the first round of his Class B, under-69kg bout with Glyn Davis (Whitehawk ABC).

But after being given a small break, Gegic’s high work rate made things difficult for Davis and the referee stepped in to give two standing eight counts before stopping the contest.

Gegic remains undefeated with an impressive record of 20-0.

Clubmate Chris Cunningham was unable to make it a hat-trick of first-round stoppages in the Class B, under-75kg category as he faced Alex Coles (Creekside ABC).

But the hard-working Cunningham never allowed his opponent the space to work throughout the contest and was a winner via unanimous decision.

Gegic, Abdullah and Sunni Torgman (Female Class B, under-60kg) were due to box on Friday in the National quarter-finals at Basildon Sports Centre, but their opponents withdrew.

Cunningham also has a bye to the National semi-finals along with Laura Weis (Female Class A, under-54kg) which place on October 20 in Swindon.

Lina Dhayatkar (Class A, Under-51kg) and Charlotte Briant (Class B, under-75kg) have straight finals which will be contested on the weekend of October 27-28 at the Spiceball Leisure Centre in Banbury.