British Athletics League Results & Reports 2008: Match 2, Thames Valley Athletic Centre, Eton

Above great points came in the throws. Scot Thompson (left) placed 4th in the A shot and discus and 6th in the B javelin. Mark Allen (right) won the B shot and hammer, and took 3rd in the B discus.

Bels move up the league

League positions after two matches

Newham & Essex Beagles

Woodford Green with Essex Ladies

City of Manchester

Belgrave H

Birchfield H

Enfield & Haringey AC

Shaftesbury Barnet H

Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow

Swirling winds gusting to 5m/sec were to have a big effect on the track performances at this second Premiership match. All clubs had very different teams from the tough first match in Birmingham due to losing athletes to several clashing overseas events. Belgrave were struggling like many others and fielded a small team of just 23 athletes including three making their debuts at this level. Our hopes were not high!

Mark Allen - a revelation

However a good start saw the team leading after just three events. Mick Jones made a welcome return as the hammer led off proceedings. Mark Allen, who had spent three months earlier in the year joining William Sharman under the command of John Anderson filming Gladiators for Sky TV, had promised us good results from a truncated training regime. And what a revelation! He produced a series of throws each progressively beating his previous best ending up with a 59.54m mark which added over 6m to his best and won the B event by 15m. Buoyed by this he moved to the discus, and got one throw in to gain third in the B event while at the same time starting the high jump and reached a respectable 1.80m before setting his sights on the shot where a 15.45m effort was good enough to win the B event. A total of 36 points from Mark, which were to play a big part in the team exceeding the predicted targets set by the team managers. The other two members of our throws squad also performed valiantly with Scot Thompson throwing a big season’s best of 54.12m to gain fourth in the A discus, 15.92m for fourth in the A shot and 46.97m for sixth in the B javelin. Then James Everard contributed with a fifth spot in the A javelin and followed his previous match pole vault contribution with a high jump effort that gained points but again would have challenged a competent limbo dancer.

Above: newcomers to the team - Sean Reidy (left was 4th in the A 400 hurdles with Jean-Charles Roghi (right) 2nd in the B event.

22 points from the 400 hurdles

The track started much better than Match 1. First up was the 400 hurdles. Sean Reidy making his first appearance in Belgrave colours ran sensibly into a huge headwind down the back straight and finished fast moving from seventh to fourth over the last three hurdles. Jean Charles Roghi then added good points with a fighting second spot in the B event. Twenty two welcome points from an event which has proved a problem over recent years. Then the 800, with Neil Speaight winning the A race, moving from last to first down the home straight. In the B event Jon Blackledge had to take the lead on lap one as the swirling wind prevented any breakaways. Even then the bell was reached in only 58 secs. Normally this would have set up the fast finishers and sure enough Jon was gobbled up down the back straight but showed a welcome improvement to his finishing speed failing to get first spot by just .04sec. More excellent points!

Quality competition

Alex Nelson of City of Manchester won the 100m in a legal time of 10.38sec and completed the double by winning the 200m in 20.49sec which is a Premiership League record, an Olympic A standard qualifying time and the fastest legal time by a Brit this year. The wind was kind to the sprinters but such was the quality of the competition that Wade Bennett Jackson had to settle for fifth in the A 100m and sixth in the A 200m. Idi Akindele ran close to his pb’s gaining seventh in the B100m and a very creditable third in B 200m. William Sharman got us back to winning ways in the A high hurdles and Louis Evling-Jones gained a valuable second place in the B highs to keep the points flowing. But then just a trickle of points from the steeplechase where we had just one competitor and from the 5000 where James Kelly struggled with a thigh strain. The B 5000 man was James Fairbourn who also was making his first appearance at this level. Unfortunately the strong field prevented him from scoring more points. At other matches his 15.42sec effort would have more richly rewarded. Early days for this young man and he will be back fitter and faster. Another first timer, Philip Burkart, joined Stephen Sharp in the 1500, which again was wind effected, but more good points were added with solid third placings in both the A and B events. Sadly the only jumps event which came up to scratch was the TJ. Adrian Phillips competed with a thigh strain in the long jump and Gary Wilson went through the motions in his less favoured event but with David Wellstead rung 22 points out of the TJ. Cameron Johnston jumped solidly to get PV points but Louis Evling Jones failed three attempts at his opening 4.20 height and will need to iron out some wrinkles before next week’s decathlon trials.

Scratch squad takes the sprint relay

And at the end of an afternoon where we had fluctuated from first to fifth we came to the relays where we had insufficient specialists to give hope of many points. Some wheeling and dealing combined with a little arm twisting meant we could at least start relay teams. The 4 x 100 started with sprinters Wade and Idi, with decathlete Louis Evling-Jones running the bend handing over to hurdler William Sharman, And while the hugely talented competing teams were making a hash of the early changeovers the Belgrave scratch squad looked as though they had been together for years. A series of smooth handovers meant that William was leading down the home straight chased by Daniel Plummer and Mark Findley who had earlier run 10.42 for third in the A 100. And much to his and everyone’s delight William prevailed. Not by much but a win is a win and we took the 16 points which moved the team to fourth spot. The long relay squad was equally disparate, with 1500m man, Philip Burkart, joining 800m winner Neil Speaight to back up Set Osho and Ryan Thomas who had run nearly identical times in the A and B 400. Set had finished seventh in the A 400 while Ryan had finished third in the B. So we weren’t expecting great things and again were pleasantly surprised with a storming fourth place in the long relay and in the match and in the League. We never fail to be surprised at the way results and league positions change from match to match. But there is one exception Newham and Essex Beagles are clear ahead and it would take a miracle for any other team to prevent them from taking the League title this year.

100m: 5 W Bennett-Jackson 10.55/0.6; 7 I Akindele 10.93/-0.5. 200m: 5 W Bennett-Jackson 21.36/0.8; 3 I Akindele 21.80w/3.0. 400m: 7 S Osho 48.76; 3 R Thomas 48.69. 800m: 1 N Speaight 1:52.25; 2 J Blackledge 1:55.16. 1500m: 3 S Sharp 3:55.39; 3 P Burkart 4:00.87. 5000m: 7 J Kelly 14:59.68; 8 J Fairbourn 15:41.90. 110mH: 1 W Sharman 13.77w/2.7; 2 L Evling-Jones 14.81w/3.2. 400mH: 4 S reidy 54.68; 2 JC Roghi 54.19. 3000mSC: 8 D Mason 10:48.79. HJ: 8 M Allen 1.80; 6 J Everard 1.50. LJ: 8 A Phillips 6.80w/4.3; 4 G Wilson 6.57/1.1. TJ: 4 G Wilson 14.20w/3.5; 1 D Wellstead 13.96w/2.2. PV: 4 C Johnston 4.40; - L Evling-Jones nh. SP: 4 S Thompson 15.92; 1 M Allen 15.45. DT: 4 S Thompson 54.12; 3 M Allen 47.02. JT: 5 J Everard 59.18; 6 S Thompson 46.97. HT: 4 M Jones M40 61.80; 1 M Allen 59.54. 4x100m: 1 Belgrave H 41.26 (W Bennett-Jackson, I Akindele, L Evling-Jones, W Sharman). 4x400m: 4 Belgrave H 3:20.28 (P Burkart 51.4, R Thomas, N Speaight, S Osho).

Match: 1 Newham & Essex Beagles 341; 2 City of Manchester 310; 3 Woodford Green wEL 308; 4 Belgrave H 289; 5 Enfield & Haringey AC 275; 6 Birchfield H 248; 7 Shaftesbury Barnet H 221; 8 Windsor SE&H 185.

Above: Just over 200m to go in the A 800m and Neil Speaight comes round the outside to launch his attack.

League positions after two matches	League Points	Match Points
Newham & Essex Beagles	16	675.5
Woodford Green with Essex Ladies	13	636
City of Manchester	13	621
Belgrave H	8	544.5
Birchfield H	8	524.5
Enfield & Haringey AC	6	510
Shaftesbury Barnet H	6	484.5
Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow	2	360

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