2XU Men's Surrey Cross Country League Division 1, Race 1, Wimbledon Common

New faces in the scoring ten

There were plenty of new faces to be seen in our team for the opening Surrey League fixture. Many of Charlie Dickinson’s Battersea squad turned out and of these, making a big impact in our scoring ten, was Sam Village, getting in among the old hands Roy Maddams and Matt Taylor. Matt Welsh, also a ‘Charlie’s Runner’ likewise made the scoring ten in his first outing.

There’s no doubting that Roy is upping his game, targeting the Cockerpillar at every outing and with a self-confessed mission of making our 12-Stage team by next spring. He celebrated his highest league place with an après run extra lump of chocolate cake but will no doubt wear that off at his next training session with our Maidenhead training group that includes Mike Trees, Pete Willis, John Needham, etc.

US runner Kyle Marks led in our scorers and will be a great asset in the races to come this winter. Also back to the old routine was James Browne after years of working overseas.

Kent AC seemed to have the team event stitched up with plenty of forward placings, but Thames came back at them towards the back end of each club’s scoring squads. With plenty of our own runners unavailable for this race we had to be pretty pleased with an opening 4th team spot.

Three youngsters lined up in the biggest Young Athletes field we’ve seen in a while and Zayd Addicott caught the eye, finishing 27th in the 58 strong field with only four lads in his own age group ahead of him.

The event was a joint fixture promoted by Belgrave H and Hercules Wimbledon AC and all seemed to run smoothly; many thanks to all those who helped.

1 P Pollock (Kent) 25:05; 2 F Tickner (Kent) 25:43; 3 A Maud (Clapham) 25:57; … 7 K Marks 26:46; 24 W Cockerell 28:01; 34 R Maddams 28:37; 35 S Village 28:39; 36 M Taylor 28:40; 54 (scoring 50) M Welsh 29:28; 62 (53) J Browne 29:42; 64 (55) K Hegvold M50 30:01; 87 (75) T Weeks 31:09; 89 (77) P Willis 31:16; 96 M Young 31:31; 106 R Norville 32:03; 127 A Luce M45 33:09; 129 M Foord 33:15; 152 T O’Neill M60 35:11; 183 finished.

Teams: 1 Kent AC 203; 2 Thames H&H 219; 3 Herne Hill H 271; 4 Belgrave H 446; 5 Hercules Wimbledon AC 457; 6 Clapham C 509; 7 South London H 606; 8 Ranelagh H 611; 9 Walton AC 773.

Under 17 Men/Under 15 Boys. 1 T Holden (S London) 13:03; … 31 J-C Doukrou U17 18:42; 34 R Hyder 20:25.

Teams: 1 South London H 19; =2 Hercules Wimb. & Herne Hill H 33; … 6 Belgrave H 152.

Under 13 Boys. 1 O Millard (Herne H) 14:31; … 5 Z Addicott 16:34.

Teams: 1 Herne Hill H 14; 2 Hercules Wimb. AC 33; 3 Walton AC 89; … 5 Belgrave H 110.

Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.