We are right to stick up for ourselves - November 28, 2004

The last five weeks have been somewhat dire for the club both on and off the field, and it comes to my attention that the anonymous hate merchants spreading their vitriolic spleen are at it on their message boards again. The attacks centre on last Saturday’s haywire and fairly awful day at Parliament Hill, in which the club is more than ready to accept we were far short of our best. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t do our best. To accuse us of being “arrogant” or “not respecting Cambuslang” is baseless and spiteful. We showed up with six strong runners in a four to score race. Three other injured top men made the journey to support. A couple of unfortunate dnf’s and we still finished a team. A team that the rules indicate was a winning one.

Bristol ladies team had a couple of drop-outs, and as they rightly point out, they thus deserved to win even more because it shows their depth. And yet all some folk can do is criticise us for not caring enough – and then criticise us for caring too much when we question the validity of the results. We thought we deserved to fight for Britain in the Euro Club Champions half-marathon, after sending a brilliant team up to Ackworth, but UK Athletics felt Thames deserved it more, and it was their boys who got a lovely weekend in the sun. Good on them. But now there’s strong opposition to us running in Europe again. Part of me says: perhaps we should fall on our sword, we had a shocking day, let Cambuslang represent Britain and chase European glory; that’s the way to pacify our detractors. However, the sane part of me reasons that the moment you let those with unconditional hatred and venom have their way, then the battle is truly lost. We are right to stick up for ourselves.

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Thames were quite simply devastating yesterday at Putney Vale, and must be now considered hot favourites to win the Southern. I’ve just been down to William Hill and put ten grand on them. Hah - that’ll jinx ‘em! The Bels fought valiantly to a man, and everyone (except a very damp squib skipper) ran extremely well. It’s great to see our man-of-the-match from Parly Hill, Tim Watson, racing regularly and back to nearly top form, and we love what we see in Eliot Lyne. Welcome indeed. As for Mal – astonishing. By far his best ever run for the Bels and an inter-galactic man-of-the-match winner. You beauty, they cry! The race score saw Alan and mine’s worst fears come true: it was a real trouncing [but only just as it turns out, as a slight mis-calc by Thames saw their 11th man come 65th…!] But have THH delivered the knock-out punch?? I think not! 129 points is our deficit. Quite simply, if we do a ‘Brockwell’ on them on our home patch [a fast, fairly flat, straightforward course], it’ll be all to play for in Coulsdon. Nobody’s throwing in the towel yet!

The South of the Thames Senior on December 18 sees Mission JJ hit the half-way stage. It’d be great to win there and get our season back on track. And thereafter, it’s all to come: The county champs, Surrey League x 2, The Southern (where Alan already has 11 ticks – amazing!], and of course The National, where I’m sure there’ll be the mother of all dogfights to get into our scoring six. And then we swap the mud for tarmac and plenty more drama and excitement. In short: stay fit, stay healthy, it’s gonna be one heck of a ride!