British Athletics League Results & Reports 2007: Match Four, Copthall Stadium, Barnet

Back from the brink

Belgrave aim to emulate “Shaftesbury”

Bill Laws reports:- Shaftesbury Barnet Harriers have a reputation for turning out weak-ish teams for the first three BAL matches, hover around the relegation zone, and then pull out a great team to cause all kinds of mayhem in the final match. As our plight after three lack lustre matches was to be in the relegation zone with Shaftesbury we knew we would need some special performances to avoid the drop to Division 1.

Golden oldies in the throws

With top point scorers William Sharman and Darren Chin on their way to the World Student Games and Joe Ive injured, we cast the net wide to chase every point. Soon matters seemed dire as multi event throwers Scot Thompson and Mark Allen reported their unavailability. Fortunately our golden oldies came up trumps. First Mick Jones agreed to return from holiday on the Isle of Wight and Abi Ekoku and Leith Marar agreed to cover discus – in Abi’s case the shot too. Veteran Chris Privett was delighted to make his BAL début in the hammer and was rewarded with a big pb and good points in the B event. In the A hammer Mick Jones put together his best series of the year to snatch second spot providing a welcome boost. Not to be outdone Leith threw a season’s best in the discus and Abi worried the 50m mark having not trained this year. But the standard was high, the wind ideal and all throwers revelled in the competition won by Woodford’s Emeka Udechuku in a new league record of 63.37m. Sadly bad luck again dogged the pole vault as Keith Higham picked up a nasty injury in the warm up but Cameron Johnston made some amends by finishing a commendable third in windy conditions.

And then to the barriers

The first event the 400m hurdles has been a disaster this year and both Ryan Dinham and Matt Douglas were using this last match to make their first League appearances of the season. But then Ryan Dinham twisted his ankle by stepping on the track kerb during warm up and looked a non starter in the A event. Just as the team managers were despairing the gun went and lo! and behold there was Ryan leading at hurdle 5. A miracle! Lack of race fitness saw him drop back to fourth but at least he kept going despite a visibly swollen ankle, which was to eliminate him from the forthcoming high hurdles and long relay. With Matt Douglas running the B at the end of an injury wrecked season we were expecting more good points and this seemed highly likely as he cleared hurdle 9 well ahead; but he got the last one totally wrong and pushed it over by hand - instant disqualification! Perhaps driving down from York on the morning of the race had affected his legs. Embarrassed, he agreed to replace Ryan in the high hurdles where he was joined by Louis Evling-Jones to score useful points.

City of Manchester’s international steeplechaser Stuart Stokes took command of the longest “barrier” event but the Bels were solid here with Sam Aldridge clocking the best Belgrave BAL time of the season and Will Cockerell – again running an event that he does not particularly enjoy – scoring enough points to make him our latest BAL-100-pointer – and he’d driven all the way from Somerset on the morning of the race to do it!

While on the flat …

Paskar Owor was doubling the 800m and 1500m and hung back in the shorter race as the leaders jogged through in 61 seconds. Badly placed and unable to match the sprinters he finished in fifth spot having run 54 for the second lap. The B race was faster from the start and Jonathan Blackledge continued his return to fitness with a good second spot. Paskar made amends by placing second in the 1500m where tragically Darren Gauson was tripped and suffered such a serious knee injury that father Bryan had to drive him back to Edinburgh instead of flying back.

Big points in the sprints and long jump

The sprints were to be the first of our big points scorers with the welcome sight of Chris Lambert winning the A and Wade Bennett Jackson the B 100m into huge head winds. Celebrating the first double victory of the season Chris went on to win the A 200m in a time faster than the British sprinters in the previous night’s London Grand Prix – and into a bigger headwind. Manchester's Andy Turner was a full four metres adrift. With further additions to the World Champs still to be announced we wondered if Chris had done enough for the selectors to give him the nod for a 200m spot.

Meanwhile former AAA’s decathlon champion Louis Evling-Jones was embarking on the most hectic two hours of his athletic career. First the long jump where in the sixth round he leapt a mighty 7.37m to enable Adrian Phillips to win the B event with 7.07m. Then to the high hurdles where he ran 15.30 into a 2.7m/s headwind followed by an unscheduled shot (a late injury prevented Chris Gearing from competing) where an 11.43m putt was good enough for sixth spot in the B. Abi avoided the wooden spoon in the A shot but the points from this event were well down on pre-match expectations.

“…the relegated clubs will be Belgrave and Trafford!”

It was about this point in time that announcer Tony Miller gave the match point scores concluding with “if those positions stand the relegated clubs will be Belgrave and Trafford!” Things were not looking good.

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