British Athletics League Results & Reports 2009: Match 4, Derby

On his way back to full fitness, Dan Mulhare ran 14:49.97 for 2nd in 5000 metres after he'd already notched up 3rd place and 3:53.78 for 1500 metres.

Back to the Premiership

Final League positions

Belgrave H

Windsor, Slough, Eton & Hounslow AC

Basingstoke &MH AC

Gateshead H & AC

Kent AC

City of Liverpool

Notts AC

Border H

With promotion assured we expected problems in motivating athletes and sure enough Monday’s weak team became even weaker by Friday and on the day injuries reduced us to a bunch of walking wounded.

On two occasions Belgrave have sent teams with as few as 18 members into the fray. This time we were 16 until spectator Paul Beaumont volunteered to fill gaps so we were ended up with 17. The match format and events uncannily mirrored those of the first match at Abingdon. Ten weeks had passed and here we were with a joint fixture with BAL Div 3. Once again strong in the throws yet not so strong elsewhere. With 34 individual events to cover plus the 2 relays this was to be a test for our squad of Spartans. The absence of our two top decathletes focused the minds as battle commenced – the aim to top the league ahead of a resurgent WSEH who could still pull a flanker.

Left: Pole vaulter Sam Colgate had a massive clearance at 4.20m - but then didn't go any higher.

Below: Mark Wiseman was made man of the match for his 54.34m discus throw.

A curate’s egg

Following negotiations at the team hotel B string horizontal jumps man Joe Evling-White lined up with Sam Colgate for the opening event, the pole vault. Joe had been a good junior decathlete (one of John Anderson’s squad who had been a big points scorer in Belgrave’s junior teams 5 years ago) and has recently returned from walkabout in South America. Unfit but keen, his first attempt at an opening height bombed. Then a Border athlete wiped one of the uprights delaying the competition by 20 minutes. The delay seemed to work wonders for Joe who was able to withdraw from the competition after clearing 3.20m for third in the B string. Sam waited patiently to enter at 4.20, had a massive first time clearance and then failed to progress; but better than expected points in the pole vault. Meanwhile Mark Wiseman (fresh from his medal haul at the World Masters) winged the discus to 54.34m, a distance which was to gain him the man of the match award. Three weeks earlier Mark Allen had thrown in great pain. Now he showed he was on the way to recovery by winning the B event. Maximum points!

The first track events were, like the curate’s egg – good in parts. Better points came in the 400 hurdles. Sean Reidy finished fourth in the A string while Matt Douglas who claimed to have trained twice last week set a season’s best to gain second spot in the B race. Sean was a bit disappointed with his time and was rewarded by being promoted to the A string 400, A string 110H and lead off man in the sprint quartet. Matt was rewarded with the A800, high jump and sprint hurdles. But his illusion of fitness was found out in the 800 where he went with the pace for 100m, looked OK at the bell and then jogged what he described as the hardest lap of his life. His match was over as new joint team manager John Powell submitted the first of the days 12 change of competitor slips. Two very slow last places in the 800 were followed by disappointments in the 100m. First Captain James Ellington eased out of the blocks, accelerated into the lead and eased over the last 10m for second place. He reported a ham string problem and couldn’t contest the 200m later. The same thing happened in the B race to Set Osho. Long jumper Jodie Chappell was drafted into the A200m while Jason Hussain back from injury and who had planned to run an easy B400 found himself risking all in the B200.

A rollercoaster ride

As the afternoon moved on and the points scores were periodically announced it was becoming clear that Gateshead had put a strong team together and would win by large margin. But all the remaining teams were posting good and poor results so that at any time less than 20 points covered seven teams. The result would go to the wire. There was some brighter news from the track where in the 1500m we lined up two members of our champion road relay team. Dan Mulhare has missed most of the season due to injury and had agreed to test his fitness by running the 1500m and the 5000m, events separated by only 55minutes. In the 1500m Dan was joined by UK junior 3000m champion Nick Goolab. Dan had left Edinburgh on the 7.30am train and arrived in good time for the 1500 race (combined A and B). Starting in the pack with Nick on his shoulder Dan moved through as the pace wound up to finish an excellent third in the A race behind Gateshead’s Ryan McCloud. Nick raced well to gain more valuable points, finishing second in the B event. Dan seemed to have recovered well as the 5000m race got under way. Aware that training had been limited he took the lead with 5 laps to go only to be caught on the last lap by Notts AC’s Martin Whitehouse. Mal Byansi scored good points in a slow Brace.

Marks of distinction

While points in the track events were progressing in fits and starts the throws specialists were having a field day. Mark Wiseman added a B shot win and a fourth in the B javelin to bring his points total to 34 for the day. But the team contribution came from Mark Allen with first in the A shot, first in the B discus, third in the A hammer, seventh in the A javelin plus sixth in the B high jump. Five events and a highest ever one match total for Belgrave of 48 points put Mark in the record books.

With Tom Gardner making a good scoring debut to gain third in the A high jump, plus some useful points from the triple jumpers, we had somehow covered all events except the B chase.

A squad of walking wounded then carried the baton around for a few extra points in the sprint relay but the long relay proved a challenge to far.

Premiership return

And at the final count we had returned to the Premiership in style. The final League points totals indicated that it been a clear win. But we knew that WSEH had struggled too on the day and it all could have been a lot tighter. With the predicted demotion of Trafford and the surprise demotion of Sheffield from the Premiership next year’s matches should be more Southern based which hopefully will encourage greater support from our athletes. John Powell is on a mission to ensure we assemble bigger and better teams to take the challenge forward. He’s behind you!

Footnote. Great to see so many old friends at the Derby meeting. Ireland based past joint team manager Leo Coy is holidaying with his family in Norfolk and drove over to support and photo the team. Coaching legend John Anderson came to oversee Mark Allen’s efforts and remade contacts with Joe Evling-White who will be embarking on a schedule set by John for next year. And Dave Denton who runs the Epsom race series plus the Nonsuch relays chewed over old times on a day when the sun shone and all was well with the world.

100m: 2 J Ellington 10.66/-0.9; 3 S Osho 11.21/0.3. 200m: 7 J Chappell 23.08/?; 8 J Hussain 24.14/0.1. 400m: 5 S Reidy 51.03; 6 J Hussain 52.24. 800m: 8 M Douglas 2:51.47; 7 P Beaumont M40 2:32.60. 1500m: 3 D Mulhare 3:53.78; 2 N Goolab 3:55.91. 5000m: 2 D Mulhare 14:49.97; 5 M Byansi 16:36.84. 110mH: 8 S Reidy 15.85/-0.7; 8 P Beaumont M40 20.39/0.1. 400mH: 4 S Reidy 54.01; 2 M Douglas 54.41. 3000mSC: 6 M Morgan 10:07.35. HJ: 3 T Gardner U20 1.90; 6 M Allen 1.75. LJ: 5 J Chappell 6.65; 5 J Evling-White 5.77. TJ: 4 D Wellstead 13.98; 4 J Evling-White 12.89. PV: 4 S Colgate 4.20; 3 J Evling-White 3.20. SP: 1 M Allen 15.32; 1 M Wiseman M40 15.08. DT: 1 M Wiseman M40 54.34; 1 M Allen 44.19. JT: 7 M Allen 49.92; 4 M Wiseman M40 43.74. HT: 3 M Allen 57.21; 2 M Richards 53.75. 4x100m: 6 Belgrave 43.86 (S Reidy, S Osho, J Chappell, J Ellington).

Match result: Gateshead H & AC 381; 2 Basingstoke & MH AC 323; 3 Kent AC 291; 4 Belgrave H 272; 5 Notts AC 260; 7 Windsor, Slough Eton & Hounslow AC 241; 8 Border H 136.

Final League positions	League Points	Match Points
Belgrave H	29	1252.2
Windsor, Slough, Eton & Hounslow AC	23	1163.2
Basingstoke &MH AC	21	1139.2
Gateshead H & AC	20	1169.2
Kent AC	20	1117.2
City of Liverpool	15	1056.7
Notts AC	10	977.7
Border H	6	808

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