Birmingham Cross Country League Division 2

7/1/06 Abington Park, Northampton

Above: Twelve teams set off

Hopes were high that B&R would better our lowly twelfth place in the previous fixture as our eleven starters included both Matt Addison and Richard Malin who had missed the race at Coventry. James Adie was unavailable having been injured falling off his bike over Christmas but hopefully will be fit again soon. There was some improvement with B&R finishing level on points with Sphinx but being edged into 9th place because their their sixth runner came in before ours. The team moved up in the overall table away from the relegation zone but the result could have been a lot better had Matt not had to pull up with muscle pains after two laps. Team captain Barry Cooke merits a special mention- he didn’t compete because of injury but made the long car trip to support the team and to act as emergency reserve if needed.

The snowy trip down the M1 had promised wintry conditions but the weather had cleared by the time we reached Northampton and the conditions were good. The course comprised four hourglass-shaped laps, the first half of each being rolling tree-lined grassland with greasy, muddy sections. The second half of each lap was firmer underfoot, taking in the long drag past the start to the top of the course, rounding the football pitches and ending with a downhill through to the finish. 

Above: Kevin Lanckham shadows a Solihull & Small Heath runner

Matt was well up for two laps but started slipping back and had to retire with muscle pains. That left Richard Malin to fly the flag for B&R at the front end of the field, eventually finishing eighth. Phil Carbutt felt that he didn’t run as fluently as in recent XC races at Coventry and Leamington but still managed a valuable twenty-fourth place. Kevin Lanckham kept up his good form to be third scorer and Ian Keyte was pleased to beat some familiar faces in finishing 63 rd. Mark Graham finished in the scoring six for the second successive fixture. Gavin Moorhead, Paul Atkins and Phil Anderson again battled it out to be sixth scorer. Gavin led these three after the first lap whilst Paul and Phil swapped places constantly. Paul only lost ground on the hills on the last lap and Gavin held Phil off by one place in a close finish (but Phil was pleased to get inside the first hundred at least). Alan Elsmere finished full of running, as is to be expected following his sub-64 minute 10 mile at Sneyd before Christmas and Phil Richardson was only 10 places behind.

Left: Ian Keyte on the downhill

Right: Gavin Moorhead 6 th B&R

Phil Anderson edges ahead of Paul Atkins (it's not a night run it's just a weak camera flash)

The battle for promotion remains tight with only 100 points covering the first four teams in the league chasing the three promotion places – Birchfield and Wolverhampton & Bilston actually have the same number of points in third place. With Tom Penfold winning for the second successive fixture, Birchfield had two runners in the first three and reportedly would  have recorded a 1-2-3 except their Eritrean runner arrived too late for the start. Rugby & Northampton made the most of home advantage to win today’s fixture and to leapfrog in to second place in the table. Their strength in depth was demonstrated by the fact that their B team's total of 230 points would have been good enough to take fourth place on the day. B&R climbed one place to eighth overall just 8 points behind Warwick University. I think that it is worth paying tribute to Warwick University's sixth scorer (Mark Cummings in 161st place) who we saw doggedly complete the race. He was limping badly from an injury but finished and ensured that his team were not automatically relegated for being incomplete.  The surprise of the day was Cannock & Stafford scoring 607 points to slip from eighth to twelfth in the table.

Final BLXC Div. 2 race: Sat. 11th Feb. 2006 at 2.30 p.m. Wolverhampton.

Leading finishers

1 Tom Penfold (Birchfield)  32.02

2 Mark Dalkins (Birchfield) 32.52

3 Tom Warrender (W&B) 33.58

B&R finishers

8 Richard Malin  34.07

24 Phil Carbutt  36.08

33 Kevin Lanckham  36.48

63 Ian Keyte  38.53

82 Mark Graham  39.53

98 Gavin Moorhead  41.15

99 Phil Anderson  41.20

109 Paul Atkins  42.16

121 Alan Elsmere  43.34

131 Phil Richardson  44.50

169 finishers

Click HERE for full results.

Team results

1 Rugby & Northampton 83

2 Birmingham Rowheath 169

3 Birchfield 218

4 Wolverhampton & Bilston 224

5 Kenilworth 240

6 Northbrook 274

7 Gloucester 295

8 Sphinx 308

9 Bromsgrove & Redditch 308

10 Solihull & Small Heath 372

11 Warwick University 435

12 Cannock & Stafford 607

13 Trentham Did Not Start

League positions after 3 fixtures

1 Birmingham Rowheath 469

2 Rugby & Northampton 488

3= Birchfield Harriers 582

3= Wolverhampton & Bilston 582

5 Northbrook 712

6 Kenilworth 756

7 Warwick University 864

8 Bromsgrove & Redditch 872

9 Gloucester 1007

10 Sphinx 1023

11 Cannock & Stafford 1126

12 Solihull & Small Heath 1261

13 Trentham –

N.B. These positions agree with the provisional standings that we displayed here on Saturday night as calculated by Barry on the car journey back to Bromsgrove. So their accuracy was not affected by his listening out for Palace’s score in the FA Cup and the excitement of Nuneaton equalising against Middlesborough.

P. Anderson  7/1/06 (revised 10/1/06)