West Midlands Young Athletes Cross Country

Meeting 2 of 5 at Arrow Valley , Redditch

Sunday 11th November 2007

The club hosted the 2nd West Midlands Young Athletes Cross Country League fixture at Arrow Valley Fields, Ipsley, Redditch on Sunday 11th November. Visiting clubs were impressed by the course planned by Chris Hunt, a big thank you to Chris for organising this.

The club had a good turnout for this local venue allowing them to improve on the 4245 points scored at the 1st fixture to 5206 point at this fixture. The club maintained their 8th place in the league, which contains 20 clubs from throughout the West Midlands , and widened the gap from Wolverhampton & Bilston AC who lie in 9th place.

After a well-observed 2 minutes silence for Remembrance Sunday at 11 o'clock, the first to run on the day were the Under 11 girls. Latisha Thompson ran an impressive race to finish 5th, missing out on a top 10 place overall this season by only 2 points. Molly Savage finished in 21st place following her 1st place the day before at the District Schools Cross Country and nursing a sore ankle. Supporting Molly and Latisha was Ellie Thomas 73rd. These girls maintained their 13th place in the league out of 18 clubs fielding runners in the Under 11 girls category.

Above: 12 of the U13 girls team – sorry it was impossible to get them all to stand still in one place long enough for a full team photo!

Following on from the impressive eleven Under 13 girls who ran in the 1st fixture, the club had its best turn out of fifteen Under 13 girls. Georgie Savage run a well-judged race to finish 5th, she is also the 5th highest scoring under 13 girl this season. With only 9 points separating the top five under 13 girls there is still hope of Georgie retaining her under 13 girls champion title. The other under 13 girls were Georgie Hartigan 41st, Kira Swannell 70th, Hayley Oliver 79th, Caelyn Hartigan 86th, Charlotte Tongue 108th, Kelly Caswell 111th, Zoe Scoltock 119th, Lauren Grogan 128th, Vicky Reynolds 130th, Sadie Beard 131th, Danielle Caulwell 134th and Tamaryn Phipps-Jones 139th. Even with the fantastic turn out the Under 13 girls dropped one place in the league from 9th place down to 10th due to Solihull & Small Heath AC putting in a good result. The first 5 finishers for the club count towards the team’s points. There are still less then 100 points separating the clubs in positions 6th (Halesowen A & CC) through to B&R in 10th, which is not much considering the club scores more than 700 points in most age categories at each event.

Left: Sally Hogan beats a Royal Sutton Coldfield Runner in the final sprint. Right: Harrison Howie & Rory Tuffin 3rd & 4th scorers for the club’s highest placed team.

In the Under 15 girls race Sally Hogan ran a fast 2nd half to come 17th supported by Tomasina Ball 36th, Laura Thomas 44th, Hayley Oliver 47th and Sarah Worthington 62nd out of 77 finishers. The result sees the Under 15 girls leapfrog Leamington C &AC and Tipton Harries to end up 9th in the league from 11th after the 1st fixture.

The only Under 17 woman to run for the club, again, was Charlotte Cole who had a great race to finish 11th out of 46 finishers, an improvement on 18th at the 1st fixture. She alone has got the club to 12th place out of 16 clubs in the Under 17 women’s category!

We had a full team in all boys’ age categories for this fixture improving on the 1st fixture where we were short of 1 athlete in each age category.

For the Under 11 boys Jacob Hood repeated his performance in the 1st meeting finishing 2nd behind Robert Stroud from Tamworth . Jacob was leading the race 50 metres from the finish line, however Robert managed to get past him just before the line. I’m sure that Jacob will finish ahead of him before the end of this season. Jim Morley also had a great run again finishing 8th. Another good run from Lewis Anderson saw him finish 21st out of a field on 91 runners. George Stanhope in his first race for the club finished well in 53rd place. William Tuffin improved on his last race to finish 81st, even though he finished 60th at the last race there were only 67 runners compared to the 91 finishers this time. Overall Jacob is the 2nd highest scoring Under 11 boy, 2 points behind Robert Stroud, and Jim Morley is currently 7th, another 6 points would put him in 4th place, he currently has 386 points from only two fixtures with three more to come. The Under 11 boys are now 6th in the league, up from 7th pushing Tipton Harriers down one place.

Above: Six of B&R’s U13 boys team line up before the start.

Seven Under 13 Boys represented the club. First to finish, in his first race for the club, was George Payne in 18th followed soon by George Thomas in 25th improving greatly on his 35th place at the first meeting. Lawson Phipps-Jones finished 37th ahead of Matthew Daniels in 44th and Jamie Scoltock 51st to complete the 1st five for the club. Ryan Fitzgerald also running the 1st time for the club finished 73rd with regular track runner for the club, Tim Hoppe, now also tackling cross country improving on his 1st cross country to complete this one in 83rd place. The under 13 boys also improve their position in the league following this meeting from 10th place to 9th place pushing Coventry further down the table.

Above: The U15 Boys team are our highest placed team in the league after 2 fixtures.

Chris Warren running in the Under 15 boys race produced a good result finishing in 16th place, 2 places up on the 1st meeting. The rest of the under 15 boys ran closely together for the 1st lap and finished close together, Ashley Grazier 56th with Harrison Howie just behind him in 57th followed by Rory Tuffin, another boy competing in his 1st race for the club, finishing in a respectable 61st and Jack Morley completing the team in 66th out of 69 finishers, having been tripped over by another athlete! This good performance jumps the Under 15 boys up from 9th place to 5th place in the league, the highest position for the club in any age category.

Above: Sean Bowden takes on a trio of Birchfield Harriers runners at the front of the U17 men’s race.

In the Under 17 Mens race Sean Bowden kept with the front runners, leading the race for some of the time however following some pushing and barging he fell back to finish in 4th place. With Jelle Verwer from Tipton not running at this fixture Sean moves up to 2nd highest point scorer behind Paul Thompson from Birmingham Rowheath. Adam Peacock and Simon Lanckham worked together to finish in good places, Adam 13th and Simon 16th out of 91 finishers. This great performance with the whole Under 17 men’s team finishing in the top 20 moves them up to 9th place and less then 25 points behind Rugby & Northampton, 7th, and Sphinx AC, 8th. The B&R Under 17 men were the 2nd highest scoring club in the Under 17 category on the day with 570 points with only Birchfield Harriers gaining more points, 593.  Unfortunately Adam Peacock was ill for the 1st fixture, if he had been well and finished in the same position as he did on Sunday then they would have found themselves in 2nd place within the league. Let’s hope that we will be able to maintain this weekends performance and the young men will move up the table over the next 3 fixtures.

Left: Chris Hunt course planner and Phil Richardson one of the many marshals who gave their time to ensure the success of the event.

It will be just a short trip to the next WMYACCL fixture at Sandwell Valley, West Bromwich on Sunday 2nd December .

Regards,

Calvin & Rita

More photos will appear in a gallery page as soon as I get time. Watch this space – Phil.