ECCA National Cross Country Relays, Berry Hill Park, Mansfield

Tagged in Mansfield

When David Anderson looked around him on the start line of the Senior Men’s race, the last competition of the day, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the number of top clubs and the quality of the runners who had supported the 19th running of the National cross country relays at Mansfield – the 21st occurrence of the event all told. And it had been the same story in each of the preceding races.

Junior team in action

It was back in 1987 that we last lined up a Junior Men’s squad – four to a team in those days, when the race was held at Crystal Palace – and we placed 7th with Matt and Justin Chaston, Matt Kinane and Glen Tiernan. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then and how great it was too see a Belgrave team in action in this age group once more.

With barely a year of the sport behind him and only seven months of proper training James Fairbourn faced up to the best of British under 20 middle-distance talent on the first leg. The pace was terrific and totally different to anything he’d encountered before, having started his running with a couple of marathons (including a 2:51 in Chicago, 2005). James never gave up fighting but was disappointed with his time; he needn’t be, for we’ve already seen application and determination that will surely take him into our senior teams of the future.

Relishing the thought of a chase, Kris Gauson took over with Newham’s Tom Bilham in close proximity and the two of them set about the field to record a couple of top ten times. Kris has upped his training load this winter and after being a little unhappy with early winter performances, ran a scorcher at the previous week’s Scottish relays and pronounced himself very happy also with his run here at Mansfield.

The Bels were now in 17th but there was still plenty of scope for improvement as Greg Billington tore into the field ahead. Clocking a time just over nine minutes, he overtook eight men before running out of race and having to settle for a final team position inside the top ten and 25 seconds away from the medals. Greg now plans to tackle the US championships in December. At 17 years of age he has two more winters in the age group and Kris has one – so look for fireworks this time next year!

8th again for the Senior men

Over four stages of 5k (two 2.5k laps for each stage), the aggression shown at the start of the men’s race has to be seen to be believed. A short downhill charge over cropped grassland is followed by a rise and then a further roller coaster down and up again before entering the woods. David Anderson’s progress continues well and he was well up in the leading half dozen with a Staffs Moorlands vest initially at the front before Stockport’s Steve Vernon and Holmfirth’s Nick Goodliffe took over. Dave handed over to Neil Speaight in 9th spot with few of the eventual top ten placers around him – apart from the ominous presence of Newham & Essex Beagles (4th) and Altrincham (5th). We didn't originally plan to run a B team but Pete Willis was keen to check his fitness and turned up to run first stage.

It was all change on leg two as Jason Ward took Altrincham into the lead and Michael Skinner raised Blackheath’s stock by 17 points to go 2nd. It was great to welcome “Speaighty” into our team. Not a huge fan of cross country after an ankle injury earlier in his career, he was nevertheless exuberant at the start before suffering in the middle section of his stint, dropping back out of the top ten … to 13th .. and maybe a couple more places. Then, in the final kilometre on the grass at the top of the course, Neil switched into track mode and pulled back all he had lost and more, moving our colours up to 6th. Great work – and we look forward to seeing him on the road in the spring.

Stage three – and still the ingredients of this exciting race were being mixed. With a quartet that had just four seconds between them, Bedford & County replaced Altrincham at the head of the field while a resurgent Tipton Harriers moved up to second place, Sale Harriers completing the frame. The only constant in this turnover of colours at the front was the continued presence of the Beagles, never out of the first four. Phil Wicks’ eager return from an injury-induced layoff had gone so well at Sutton Park, but two weeks later and a head cold had kicked in to pull him back again. He held 6th for as long as he could but eventually had to give way to a couple of opponents, including Aldershot’s Ben Moreau and Mark Husdpith of the Morpeth Harriers who were positioning themselves to slingshot Nick McCormick on the final stage.

All up to Stephen Sharp then – but once again we had given our last man too much to do. Steve gamely chased McCormick and he pulled back two places to equal our position of 2005. Andy Vernon pulled AFD into the medals at the expense of Sale, with Tipton dropping from silver to bronze – but it was the Beagles again in front with Mark Warmby now setting his club up for a grand slam of winter titles.

For the first time results were produced using the Champion Chip method with all runners having to wear an ankle tag holding a computer chip with a unique coding that was captured as each runner crossed the line. This enabled the results to be produced to a previously unheard of accuracy in a national cross country race - giving Dave Anderson the huge pleasure of announcing to "Sharpy" that he'd cracked his time by 35/100ths!

U20 Men's 3 x 3 km. 1 Bristol & West 27:12.95; 2 Owls AC 27:23.35; 3 Liverpool H 27:28.60; 4 Trafford AC 27:31.35; 5 City of Norwich AC 27:33.35; 6 Morpeth H &AC 27:45.75; 7 University of Birmingham 27:48.30; 8 City of Stoke AC 27:52.20; 9 Belgrave H 27:53.95; 10 Notts AC 28:14.35; 71 teams started; 51 teams finished.

J Fairbourn (49) 9:51.60; K Gauson (17) 8:58.45; G Billington (9) 9:03.90.

Fastest: 1 M Mashford (Aldersot F&D) 8:47.55; 2 T Minshull (Trafford) 8:49.10; 3 R Fraser (Owls) 8:49.95; 4 T Bilham (Newham &EB) 8:51.40; 5 A Derricott (City of Stoke) 8:52.55; 6 J Pepper (Uni Birmingham) 8:53.20; ... 11 K Gauson; 14 G Billington.

Senior Men's 4 x 5 km. 1 Newham & Essex Beagles 1:00:42.85; 2 Aldershot F&D AC 1:00:47.20; 3 Tipton H 1:00:54.05; 4 Morpeth H&AC 1:01:03.25; 5 Sale H Manchester 1:01:04.90; 6 Bedford &CAC 1:01:07.55; 7 Altrincham &DAC 1:01:36.00; 8 Belgrave H 1:01:42.35; 9 Owls AC 1:02:00.45; 10 Blackburn H 1:02:18.85; 159 teams started; 132 teams finished.

A team: D Anderson (9) 15:14.35; N Speaight (6) 15:29.75; P Wicks (10) 15:43.55; S Sharp (8) 15:14.70.

B team: P Willis (96) 17:28.65.

Fastest: 1 S Vernon (Stockport) 14:42.65; 2 M Warmby (Newham &EB) 14:44.20; 3 A Vernon (Aldershot F&D) 14:45.60; 4 M Skinner (Blackheath &B) 14:45.90; 5 N McCormick (Morpeth) 14:49.25; 6 5 N Goodliffe (Holmfirth) 14:50.70; ... 21 D Anderson; 22 S Sharp.

Under 17 Men's 3 x 3 km. G Favell 10:42.55.

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