Birmingham XC & Midland Women’s XC Leagues

Senneleys Park Birmingham Sat. 5th November 2005

Paul, Damian, Gavin & Phil R. in Reservoir Dogs pose.

Men’s team captain Barry Cooke reports: Great turnout for the first Birmingham League! 16 runners - the biggest turnout by B&R for quite a few years I believe. Well done and big thanks to all present - racing or spectating. Also I know everyone will join me in thanking Phil Anderson for bringing his tent and jelly babies.

Fourth place was a cracking result, especially considering that the main aim is to consolidate in Division 2 after last year’s promotion. We're only 30 points behind 2nd and 3rd so who knows what may happen over the three fixtures - we could still go up, or down but it's a great start. A complete B team - finishing 7th - is great too and hopefully we can carry on that level of commitment and participation for the season.

Many of the guys benefited from competing against their club-mates and there were several close tussles that I'm sure helped push them on and pick up vital scoring places.

Top left: 5th placed James Adie. Top right: Damian Lewis disappears in the depths of the stream. Left: Mark Graham just outside the scoring six.

At the sharp end, two in the top ten is very encouraging - James was always just ahead of Richard and pulled away slightly at the end. I'm not sure if James realised that he just out dipped the fifth placer from Div. 2 on the line. Richard continued his fine form to take seventh. Damian ran brilliantly in his first senior cross country race (finishing second junior in the Div. 2 race) and showed there is still plenty of more to come from him this winter (top 20 by the last match, I reckon). Dave Kesterton and Richard also worked their way through the field together while Ian was pushed all the way to the finish by Mark in a desperate battle for the last scoring position.

Paul Atkins (left) keeps his head down whilst Phil Richardson (right) is surprisingly clean.

I think it was a fairly new experience for Gavin but he still had a smile on his face at the end of the so that's a good sign (I think!). Phil Anderson found the going tough but the thought of jelly babies drove him while Paul was clearly not as fit as he has been but struggled on gamely. Son beat father in the battle of the Elsmere family this time around while Dave Whipp, Phil Richardson, Steve Bach and Len can all be pleased to have got round such a tough course (ploughing through the water three times and surely longer than the advertised 10 km – Phil A.).

The first three runners and B&R runners in BLXC Div. 2 are shown below (if you want to see the complete Div. 2 results or the results from the other divisions, CLICK HERE to open the Birmingham XC League web site - the result menu is on the left of the page).

CLICK HERE to see loads more  pix from Senneleys Park on the Dudley K website & play spot the B&R runner .

Three B&R women competed in the first race of the Midland Womens XC League alongside the Women’s Reebok XC Challenge over a 6 km two lap course at Senneleys Park. Helen Russell (76th out of 168 finishers in the league) was first B&R runner home in 28-42 followed by Jane Anderson (99th in 30.01) and Judy Appleby (119th in 31:15). The B&R team scored 294 points to finish 23rd out of 30 teams. Charnwood A.C. (17 pts.), Loughborough University (29 pts.) and Birmingham University (31 pts.) took the first thee team places. The Midland league race was won by Kate Ramsey (Charnwood A.C.) in 22-24. The  winner of the Reebok challenge was Windsor Slough & Eaton Harrier Hayley Yelling (21.18) by a large margin from Hatti Dean (Hallamshire Harriers) and Rosemary Ryan (Bilboa AC, Ireland).

1  Tom Humphries (Cannock & Stafford AC) 34:01

2  Teckla Marrend (Birchfield Harriers) 36:05

3 Robert Little (Cannock & Stafford AC) 36:46

Bromsgrove & Redditch runners:

4 James Adie 37:02

7 Richard Malin 37:16 

30 Damian Lewis 40:11

36 Dave Kesterton 40:41

37 Kevin Lanckham 40:45 

82 Ian Keyte 44:24

84 Mark Graham 44:28

110 Gavin Moorhead 46:47

112 Phil Anderson 46:55

116 Paul Atkins 47:10

122 Stephen Elsmere 47:38

126 Alan Elsmere 48:08

130 Dave Whipp 48:33

149 Phil Richardson 50:44

154 Steve Bach 51:38

158 Len Quartly 52:56

185 finishers in BLXC Div. 2.

'A' Teams:

1 Birchfield Harriers 109

2 Birmingham Rowheath 166

3 Wolverhampton & Bilston 166

4 Bromsgrove & Redditch 196

5 Warwick University 200

6 Cannock & Stafford 221

7 Kenilworth 240

8 Northbrook AC 248

9 Rugby & Northampton 252

10 Sphinx 354

11 Gloucester AC 416

12 Solihull & Smallheath 523

13 Trentham RC dnf

'B' Teams:

1 Wolverhampton & Bilston 448

2 Birmingham Rowheath 494

3 Northbrook AC 531

4 Kenilworth 540

5 Birchfield Harriers 576

6 Sphinx 654

7 Bromsgrove & Redditch 670

8 Rugby & Northampton 721

9 Gloucester AC 918