2XU Surrey CC League Division One Race 4, Farthing Downs, Coulsdon

Paskar the individual league champion - but Bels must beware complacency next season

Alan Mead reports:- It was a bleak day on Farthing Downs for the last league race of the 2012-2013 series. Frank Tickner stormed away from the start as if to tell Paskar that there was no way he was going to beat him again. No doubt Mr Tickner is rounding into the sort of form that he likes to be in as the Southern and National approach.

It seemed Paskar was a little out of sorts as he also had to give way to two more Kent men as they swamped the front part of the field to win the day ... and leapfrog Thames to take the league title in their first year in the division. In fact they were unable to score Nick Torry, in 3rd, as they were over their quota of second-claimers. Nevertheless, Paskar had no trouble in holding on to his individual title ... yet again. It's a sobering thought that if we didn't have our Ugandan ace fighting our corner we would have been be very, very close to being relegated this winter.

Another good contribution came from Matt Taylor and John Needham, in his first race for the Bels was into the scoring ten.

Ranelagh had made a great effort to turn out a strong final squad and as a result pushed the Bels down to 5th on the day ... and 6th in the league. We are going to have to watch things carefully next season if we are to keep clear of the relegation zone.

On hand to watch the race was Alan Black, the winner of the final race of the '62-'63 season - held on exactly the same day - 9 February - 50 years ago. Where does the time go? Your chronicler remembers it as if it was yesterday - over at muddy Addington.

For some inexplicable reason young Malik Nehaili - an Under 13 - has been included in the Under 17 results. We'll get this sorted because his 18:13 would have placed him fourth in his correct age group. This was a particularly plucky run because he's had weeks off running with concussion caused by slipping on the snow and banging his head.

1 F Tickner (Kent) 27:14; 2 J Gilbert (Kent) 27:54; 3 N Torry (Kent n/s) 28:41; 4 P Owor (Belgrave) 28:50; 30 M Taylor 31:06; 32 W Cockerell 31:20; 48 M Trees M50 32:03; 49 K Hegvold M50 32:08; 62 R Maddams 33:08; 68 R Stannard 33:29; 87 J Needham 34:50; 102 A Luce M40 36:07; 104 R Norville 36:14; 110 M Foord 36:47.

Teams:

1 Kent AC (1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 11, 27, 33, 50, 51) 193, league total 888 (1st in league)
2 Thames H&H (8, 16, 21, 22, 24, 25, 37, 38, 42, 44) 277, 909 (2nd)
3 Herne Hill H (12, 15, 18, 20, 29, 35, 53, 61, 67, 69) 379, 1118 (3rd)
4 Ranelagh H (17, 19, 23, 26, 31, 43, 45, 56, 58, 62) 380, 2079 (5th)
5 Belgrave H (3, 28, 30, 46, 47, 57, 63, 74, 81, 83) 512, 2108 (6th)
6 Hercules Wimbledon AC (9, 14, 36, 48, 49, 54, 71, 80, 82, 86) 529, 1941 (4th)
7 South London H (10, 39, 41, 59, 60, 65, 66, 68, 70, 73) 551, 2284 (7th)
8 Reigate Priory AC (4, 13, 34, 55, 64, 75, 76, 84, 87, 88) 580, 2593 (9th)
9 The Stragglers (32, 40, 52, 72, 77, 78, 79, 85, 89, 90) 694, 2460 (8th)

Under 13. 1 L Pope (South London) 16:20; 4 M Nehaili 18:13.

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