FOUR young fighters from Ferndown Boxing Club are celebrating medal-winning performances at the illustrious Hull Box Cup tournament.

Billy Saunders and Nick Hilliard led the way with golds as the duo’s club punched above its weight at a competition that attracts all the finest 12 to 18-year-old talent in the UK – as well as a number of aspiring pugilists from continental Europe.

Saunders triumphed in the under-42kg weight class at the three-day event, with Hilliard following suit in the under-44kg category.

There was also a silver for Bailey Hibbs in the under-40kg competition, with Jimmy Ward, boxing among the heavy hitters at under-52kg, matching Hibbs’s achievement.

A fifth Ferndown boxer, Jamie Hilliard – who went into the tournament with only two fights under his belt – was narrowly beaten in a fiercely-contested under-46kg quarter-final bout.

FBC coach Jay Weaver – who trains son and former Commonwealth champion Iain Weaver at the Dorset-based gym – was staggered by his young fighters' efforts on Humberside.

He said: "We are only a small club, so to take five boxers to an enormous competition and come home with four medals is an incredible achievement.

"And Jamie was desperately unlucky to lose to a lad who had been in 14 fights and went on to win the final. "