Men's British Athletics League Division One - 2002: Match 1, Watford Stadium

Last gasp victory in opening match

Teams: 1 Belgrave H 355; 2 Newham and Essex Beagles 350; 3 Woodford Green with EL 299; 4 Birchfield H 259; 5 Trafford AC 253; 6 Shaftesbury Barnet H 235.5; 7 Border H 232.5; 8 Harrow AC 211.

Team managers John Jeffery and Bill Laws had predicted that this venue and date would always present a severe test of our strength in depth due to the previous day’s televised meet at Loughborough which attracted 20 male and 12 female Belgravians. Out of the 20 men only 5 were able to double up for this meet and the southern team was raided to fill in the gaps.

The Newham team had put out a five line whip and 11 of their Loughborough stars turned up for duty to ensure a hot competition which we seemed destined to lose. But that was not to take account of our young members who competed for every point to ensure a last gasp victory.

The sprints were outstanding with a double win in the 200s for Graham Beasley and Tim Abeyie. That was after an excellent opening 100m from Marlon Dickson who gained a close third in the A event with 10.55 into a 1.8m/s headwind. In the 1500 Andy Graffin followed up his previous day’s 800 with a debut in the 1500 which turned out to be a high class and fast tactical race. Andy was surprised at the quality losing out to a fast finishing Matt Shone but was rewarded with a 3.42.8. Steve Sharp was in contention all the way but at 300 to go fell off the pace and jogged the straight. If this hadn’t been his first track race he would have held on and looks worth about 3.44 at present. His B string win brought welcome points. Surprisingly our middle distance, which was so strong on the road relays, was weakened by illness, exams and Loughborough to the extent that only Jason Lobo toed the line in the 800. Ian Wells was nominated for the B race but pulled a hammy on the physio’s couch. (Poor old fella).

But back to the start where we got maximum points in the 400 hurdles. In the A race Matt Douglas looked strong after recent illness while in the B event 20 year old Andrew Bennett took 1.2 secs off his pb to get the experts thumbing through their books to see who this new talent was. In the high hurdles Neil Owen showed impressive form in the A race to finish second while new member Dominic Girdler got his Belgrave career off to an exciting start with a fine win in the B event.

The throws and jumps which normally give us near max points were good in parts and contrived to ensure that our lead was never more than a few points throughout the afternoon until event 16 when we seemed to be easing towards a clear win. At this point several of the tired Newham relay runners who had performed valiantly over two days called a halt little realising that the triple jump and steeplechase results would bring us almost level as we approached the final sprint and long relays. And it was our young up and coming youngsters who once more performed above expectations to secure a close victory with two first rate performances

100m: A (-1.8) 1 K.Ellis (Trafford) 10.52; 3 Marlon Dickson 10.55; B (-1.4) 1 D.Donovan (Shaftesbury) 10.70; 3 Darren Chin 10.75.

200m: A (+3.7) 1 Graham Beasley 21.3; B (+1.4) 1 Tim Abeyie 21.5.

400m: A 1 P.McKee (Border); 6 Geoff Dearman 49.38; B 1 Tim Bayley 48.1.

800m: A 1 R.Adams (Birchfield) 1.53.07; 4 Jason Lobo 1.53.84; B 1 B.Donkin (Birchfield) 1.56.41; no Belgrave competitor.

1500m: A 1 M.Shone (Woodford) 3.42.5; 2. Andy Graffin 3.42.8; B 1 Steve Sharp 3.54.2.

5000m: A 1 E.Kirui (Birchfield) 14.21.32; 5 Alaster Stewart 14.50.27; B 1 R.Birchall (Birchfield) 14.23.77; 5 Will Cockerell 15.24.80.

110mH: A (+2.4) 1 D.Greaves (Newham) 13.78; 2 Neil Owen 13.90; B (+1.6) 1 Dominic Girdler 14.3.

400mH: A 1 Matt Douglas 51.01; B 1 Andy Bennett 52.6.

3000mSC: A 1 E.Kirui (Birchfield) 8.54.2; 4 Lee Hurst 9.16.3; B 1 D.Lewis (Shaftesbury) 9.31.0; 6 Steve Kennefick 10.27.4.

HJ: A 1 D.Grant (Woodford) 2.15; 4 Richard Aspden 2.00; B 1 J.McDade (Woodford) 2.05; 2 James Hilston 1.90.

LJ: A 1 C.Tomlinson(Newham) 7.51; 4. Femi Daramola 6.91; B 1 Chris Davidson(Newham) 6.96; 4 Julian Flynn 6.54.

TJ: A 1 L.Achike(Shaftesbury) 15.38; 7 Julian Flynn 13.33; B 1 CM Cole (Newham) 14.33; 4 Dave Wellstead 13.16.

PV: A 1 K.Hughes(Newham) 5.00; 2 Ben Flint 5.00; B 1 J.Quarry (Harrow) 4.50; no Belgrave competitor.

SP: A 1 M.Proctor(Newham) 17.58; 7 Greg Beard 14.65; B 1 Brian Kelly(Trafford) 16.03; 7 Kevin Brown 13.02.

DT: A 1 E.Udechuku (Woodford) 58.15; 3 Lee Newman 53.82; B 1 Kevin Brown 54.14.

JT: A 1 Stuart Faben 72.50; B 1 Tony Smith(Shaftesbury) 64.04; 2 Clifton Green 63.37.

HT: A 1 Mick Jones 69.37; B 1 S.Brown (Newham) 63.76; 2 John Osazuwa 61.45.

4x100m: 1 Belgrave 41.22 (Graham Beasley, Darren Chin, Tim Abeyie, Marlon Dickson).

4x400m: 1 Border 3.10.39; 2 Belgrave 3.10.60 (Michael Parper 49.10, Ian Deeth 47.4, Matt Douglas 47.1, Tim Bayley 47.1).

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