British Athletics League Results & Reports 2010: Match 2, Birmingham

The gulf widens

Match: 1 Birchfield H 360; 2 Shaftesbury Barnet H 310; 3 Newham & Essex Beagles 306; 4 City of Manchester 284; 5 Woodford Green with Essex Ladies 275; 6 Enfield & Haringey 262; 7 Belgrave H 225; 8 Windsor, Slough, Eton & Hounslow AC 166.

After two matches

Birchfield H

Newham & Essex Beagles

Woodford Green with Essex Ladies

City of Manchester

Shaftesbury Barnet H

Enfield & Haringey

Windsor, Slough Eton & Hounslow AC

Belgrave H

Bad fortune again contributed to a disappointing overall team performance. First, Joe Ive, fresh from his pole vault win at the previous week’s UKA trials, pulled a calf muscle warming up which resulted in Cameron Johnston contributing just 4 points from an event which had promised much more. A dismal start, but in the hammer Mick Jones then finished a fine second while Matthew Richards broke 61m to improve his pb for the second time this year. The jumpers found a swirling wind difficult and newcomers Paul Ogun and Levi Edwards failed to make the long jump cut with distances almost a metre shy of their season’s bests. Gary Wilson made some amends in the TJ, finishing third, but David Wellstead could not repeat his match 1 performance. More points lost. The high jump saw the welcome return of Darvin Edwards, shepherded up on the day by Will Cockerell. Darvin who hasn’t trained for the last year soared a magnificent 2.15 for second equal spot. While he was celebrating our B jumper was the picture of dejection having failed to clear his opening height. Again, an opportunity to rack up good points had been lost.

In match 1 both sprinters had pulled up injured. This match saw the successful conclusion of a good 100 meters with Wade Bennett-Jackson improving to fourth in the A race and newcomer Craig Fleming gaining second spot in the B. But in the 200 our sprints gremlin struck again with Craig Fleming pulling up on the bend clutching a dodgy knee. Big points lost. The B 200 saw the welcome return of Jason Hussain (also from an earlier hamstring pull) and his second place spot was greeted with a disproportionate cheer as the team managers counted the lost points.

Apart from the hammer the throws had produced few points in Match 1. Top discus and shot man Mark Wiseman had already indicated he would miss this one and despite the best efforts of Leith Marar and Mark Allen the shot and discus only produced the anticipated reduced points. Better news in the javelin where we saw the return of Clifton Green who last competed for Belgrave eight years ago. Fired up, enthusiastic and encouraged by several groupies Clifton finished fourth in the B javelin adding precious points to James Everard’s third place in the A event. 18 points from the javelin was much better than expected.

To add to our woes Matt Douglas was our sole hurdler. While Will Sharman was wowing them in Madrid Matt manfully hauled his large and unfit frame round the single circuit and then surprised himself by clocking a sub-16 sprint hurdles. There's life in the old dog yet and we may see more in match 3

Set Osho won the A 400 by just one hundredth of a second, looking right when the danger was to his left. But a win is a win. Matt Threadgold produced solid points in the B 400 finishing fourth. With Craig Fleming out, Set later led out a scratch sprint relay team which also included triple jumper Gary Wilson on the last leg. The main aim was to get the baton round and in the circumstances fourth spot in a time of 41.91sec was considered very respectable.

It was left to the middle distance men to bring things back to normality. Paskar Owor and Nick Goolab repeated their big point performances from match 1. Paskar narrowly missed third spot in the A800 but made amends with a fine second place in the A1500. Nick was not happy with his second spot in the B1500 but even more unhappy was Jonathan Blackledge who faded badly to sixth spot after leading out the B 800. The steeplechase saw Matthew Morgan run a season’s best which was still not good enough to get him into big points. Our B steeplechaser had pulled out the day before due to work demands and that sinking feeling came back. James Fairbourn started a bit fast in the 5000 and paid the price whereas Will Cockerell started conservatively and added to the day’s excitement when he nearly caught James on the line. Will was rewarded with anchor leg on the 4 x 400 relay in a final scrabble for points but it was too little too late. We had blown it.

100m: 4 W Bennett-Jackson 10.60/1.0; 2 C Fleming 10.85/1.8; n/s 4r1 C Flemming 10.68/2.0; 4r2 G Wilson 11.1. 200m: dnf C Fleming; 2 J Hussain 21.82/0.8. 400m: 1 S Osho 47.80; 5 M Threadgold 49.71. 800m: 4 P Owor 1:53.12; 6 J Blackledge 1:58.62. 1500m: 2 P Owor 3:52.05; 2 N Goolab 3:53.79. 5000m: 8 J Fairbourn 15:46.34; 4 W Cockerell 15:48.78. 110mH: 7 M Douglas 15.79/-0.2; no B competitor. 400mH: 8 M Douglas 57.87; no B competitor. 3000mSC: 7 M Morgan 10:10.72; no B competitor. HJ: 3 D Edwards 2.15; ? no height. LJ: 6 P Ogun 6.65/1.0; 6 L Edwards 6.34/1.1. TJ: 3 G Wilson 14.43/1.7; 4 D Wellstead 13.48/0.0. PV: 8 C Johnston 3.60; J Ive no height. SP: 6 M Allen 13.71; 11 C Green 9.53. DT: & L Marar 47.37; 4 M Allen 45.10. JT: 3 J Everard 62.22; 4 C Green 56.42. HT: 2 M Jones M45 68.57; 4 M Richards 61.18. 4x100m: 4 Belgrave 41.91 (S Osho, W Bennett-Jackson, J Jussain, G Wilson). 4x400m: 8 Belgrave (M Threadgold, P Owor, J Hussain, W Cockerell) 3:39.72.

After two matches	League Points	Match Points
Birchfield H	14	638
Newham & Essex Beagles	13	628
Woodford Green with Essex Ladies	12	623
City of Manchester	10	561
Shaftesbury Barnet H	9.5	550
Enfield & Haringey	7	520
Windsor, Slough Eton & Hounslow AC	3.5	406
Belgrave H	3	434

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