British Athletics League Results & Reports 2006: Match Two, Sport City, Manchester
We live to fight again
Above: "Wardy" under siege - our only middle distance survivor from match one finds himself battling alone against the opposition. Woodford's Mark Burgess leads but the eventual winner was Shaftesbury Barnet's Gareth Price (tucked in behind Beagle Mark Warmby - number 5). Pictures by Pat Mead
Last year our match at Manchester proved to be our nemesis, writes Bill Laws. This year’s visit had been viewed with trepidation, especially as England’s footballers were playing Jamaica at Old Trafford just eight miles away. Travel was bound to be difficult and could we get the team there in one piece?
Fourteen athletes had to be replaced
At the beginning of the week the turnout looked good enough to continue our winning ways but by the end of the week overseas duties and injuries meant that half our winning match I team were missing. Fourteen athletes had to be replaced. Some places could not be filled but nonetheless we were rewarded with some splendid performances.
Joe didn't disappoint
Another early start – to fit in the double fixture with the UKWAL Div 1 fixture – saw our single vaulter, junior Joe Ive, determined to make up for his match 1 hiccup. And he didn’t disappoint. In swirling conditions he equalled his recent 5.00m pb and narrowly failed the Beijing qualifying height of 5.15m to gain a fine second place. Meanwhile there was controversy in the discus as the out of stadium field was declared to be too sloping to qualify for legal marks. The circle, too, had been cast just two days earlier and had a ridge in it. All this made Woodford’s Emeka Udechuku’s winning distance even more impressive. Leith Marar improved on his match 1 distance but in a close battle he finished below target while Mark Allen, competing for the first time for Belgrave in the discus, was also a bit below par.
Sub 51 for Ryan
But the track started with a bang, as in the A 400 hurdles Ryan Dinham ran his first sub 51sec clocking from an outside lane to just miss out on first spot and the B race saw the first appearance in this event for Belgrave of another young athlete Chris Minn who too was rewarded with a pb.
Graeme jumps the field
This was quickly followed by some exciting tactical 800m’s. In the first, Graeme Oudney had only one race plan – to go from 300m. And he did - pictured right as he made his break. A slow first lap of 60sec saw the field gather ready for a sprint finish but they were all surprised as Graeme jumped at 500m and quickly opened a 25m gap which even the fastest sprinters could not pull back. Negative splits are not unusual but to run the second lap in 52 secs which was a huge 7 seconds faster than the first, is pretty rare. The B 800 was a mirror image of the first but on this occasion Jonathan Blackledge got boxed down the back straight and by the time he had extricated himself in the home straight it was too late to catch the leaders. But another negative split.
Welcome back Wade
And the sprints to follow were to carry the momentum with Wade Bennett Jackson making a welcome season’s debut after injury, claiming a fine third in the A 100m followed by a second placing in the B race for Darren Chin. It was unfortunate that for both races the electric timing failed and the track judges had to decide the positions. Wade was clearly second in the unbiased eyes of the Belgrave supporters. Later Darren Chin was to win the B 200m from lane 1 in a big season’s best after Jason Hussain had disappointed in the A race, running nearly a second slower than his previous week’s Inter-Counties time.
We were sacrificing big points
All we can say about the steeplechase is that with only one entry we were sacrificing big points. Nevertheless veteran Paul Beaumont’s 4 points were better than none. The flat 400 was another event where our missing specialists made point scoring difficult. Ryan Dinham was feeling the effects of his earlier event but gave 110%, as too did Ian Deeth who has returned to the team after a 5 year absence. But there were not enough points here for us to advance. And in the 1500m Richard Ward was both our only middle distance man from match 1 and our only entry in this event. By now too many points had been uncontested and when the points scores were announced late afternoon Belgrave had drifted back from 1st to third spot with Birchfield just ahead of WGwEL. Our hope now was that Birchfield would push WGwEL into second spot so we could end the match with equal league points. But it was not to be.
Non specialists William Sharman and James Everard performed well in the high jump but the competition was so classy that they made little impression on the points. A similar scenario unfolded in the javelin where both James Everard and Wes Smith threw further than in match 1 but were rewarded with fewer points. James also got a mark in the triple jump where Farel Mepandy bettered 15m to gain a fine second spot in the A event. Meanwhile Mark Allen and Chris Gearing redressed the balance with good points in the shot when a drop to fourth team spot appeared a possibility.
Left: Long Jumper Richard Danso
reached a pleasing 7.14m.
Hurdlers come up trumps again
A glimmer of hope was provided when William Sharman squeezed a sprint hurdles victory into a huge headwind followed by a clear second victory from Dominic Girdler in the B event. William was to be rewarded with an invitation to next Sunday’s Gateshead Grand Prix. Simon Jones was a welcome debutant in the 5000 and was to see one of Birchfield’s many Kenyan athletes run a non-scoring 13:48 time trial. Backed by the ubiquitous Will Cockerell we were just holding on to third spot. Will has been compiling statistics on Bel’s 5000 BAL representatives and appears to have proved he has competed twice as many times as his nearest rival. No doubt a bit more of that in “Skippers Corner” before long!
So to the relays
Well aware that a dropped baton could change the placings of most of the teams the Belgrave squad played it safe and were only headed by the WGwEL squad who won by virtue of some very slick baton changing. With the long relay to go we were still aware that a baton infringement could change the final result. And then, with 15 minutes to the start, Jason Hussain was unwell and to his great credit Darren Chin stepped in to fill the breach. How he managed to sprint down the home straight only he knows but he gave Graeme Oudney a sniff of gaining a place, Graeme responded with the fastest split of the day but again our lack of specialist one lappers was to prove our undoing. But we had held on to third match place and we live to fight again in Birmingham in four weeks time.
It was a long drive home through throngs of football supporters, celebrating a 6-0 win over Jamaica. The journey gave plenty of time to ponder a fascinating roller coaster competition.
Results: 100m: 3 W Bennett-Jackson U20 10.8/-3.8; 2 D Chin 10.7/0.5. 200m: 7 J Hussain 22.34/-2.2; 1 D Chin 21.44/0.6. 400m: 7 R Dinham 49.13; 5 I Deeth 50.14. 800m: 1 G Oudney 1:52.42; 3 J Blackledge 1:55.43. 1500m: 5 R Ward 3:51.95; no B competitor. 5000m: 6 S Jones 14:44.37; 5 W Cockerell 15:19.72. 3000mSC: 8 P Beaumont M40 13:14.60; no B competitor. 110mH: 1 W Sharman 14.29/-3.7; 1 D Girdler 14.21/-0.3. 400mH: 2 R Dinham 50.84; 7 C Minn 56.37. HJ: 5 W Sharman 2.00; 4= J Everard 1.90. LJ: 4 R Danso 7.14/1.2; 2 A Phillips 6.80/-1.0. TJ: 2 F Mepandy 15.08/1.1; 6 J Everard 12.52. PV: 2 J Ive U20 5.00; no B competitor. SP: 3 C Gearing 16.27; 1 M Allen 15.62. DT: 5 L Marar 51.90; 4 M Allen 45.05. JT: 5 W Smith 60.70; 3 J Everard 58.92. HT: 3 M Jones 65.34; 2 J Osazuwa 54.86. 4x100m: 2 Belgrave 41.32 (W Sharman, J Hussain, D Chin, W Bennett-Jackson U20). 4x400m: 7 Belgrave 3:19.42 (C Minn 51.0, I Deeth 50.3, D Chin 49.6, G Oudney 48.3).
Teams: 1 Woodford Green wEL 343.5; 2 Birchfield H 314; 3 Belgrave H 297; 4 City of Manchester 285; 5 Shaftesbury Barnet H264; 6 Enfield & Haringey 251; 7 Newham & Essex Beagles 248.5; 8 Thames Valley H 173.
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.