Men's British Athletics League Division One - 2002: Match 3, Eton
White knuckle ride ahead - Birchfield and Woodford close the gap
This was the match where we intended to extend our lead at the top of Div. 1 thereby taking the pressure off the last fixture scheduled for Jarrow! Our first thoughts went to strengthening events which previously had produced few points. But unbeknown to us, it was to be the middle distance races that were to let us down badly. And the bad news of absentees increased as the countdown to match day proceeded.
We knew that Neil Speaight was taking time off from a heavy racing schedule. No worries, plenty of cover. Then Adam Zawadsky was offered an England vest for a match in Cork. No worries, plenty of cover. Then Alistair Mclean Foreman was offered an England vest for the match in Cork. A little worried, but still some cover. Then Jason Lobo also twinged a calf muscle in training. Oh dear, where's the cover? Well, the 'D' plan was to run Mark Miles in the A 800, with Spencer Barden doubling the 'B' 800 and 1500. Steve Sharp agreed to run the 1500 but had had 2 weeks off with a virus. And on the day, Spencer twinged a calf muscle after the 800, so no B 1500 runner. Oops! And for the 5000, Paul Freary phoned in to say he too had pulled a hamstring and was out of the 5000. So whereas in Match 2 the 400, 800, 1500 and 5000 had produced 108 points, this time they mustered only 47 points and the Match was already lost. But no criticism of the stalwarts who ran their hearts out. The standards were considerably higher with really good class competitions. It was good to see Geoff Dearman finally putting a decent 400 together, while Tim Bayley ran his normal gutsy race to get near to his pb with a 47.71 clocking. And our star in the 5000 was Alaster Stewart who ran another pb in a race won by Kenyan Ellvid Kirui. (Never heard of him? Us neither - another one of Birchfield's imports.) Kirui had previously won the steeplechase in which an out of sorts Kevin Nash finished a brave 4th.
Despite all efforts we couldn't fill the 'B' string slots in the ‘chase, nor the 400H B. In the A 400H, Matt Douglas was only caught by Duaine Ladejo on the line and although only 100ths of a second separated them, was given a hand timing of 49.9 to Dwaine's 49.8. But Matt was well pleased with his third sub 50 effort in 10 days.
Another pleased hurdler was Neil Owen who is improving steadily and ran a season's best with a legal 13.97 in the high hurdles.
In the long and triple jumps we missed Phillips Idowu who was nursing a heel injury while Darren Thompson was away warm weather training in Lanzarote. The long jump points were well down as Julian Flynn once again found it difficult to get near the take off board. But it was this year’s first time outings for Ben Challenger and Ben Flint that added respectability to the vertical jumps and producing near maximum points. Ben won the high jump with 2.20 and Ian Tullett finished just ahead of Ben as the pole vault was abandoned following a downpour.
As for the throws - the hammer, alias Mick and Dave, once again gave maximum points but only after Dave had two no throws and was threatening to miss the cut. Not the afternoon to be a team manager. Noteworthy in the javelin was the first appearance of Clifton Green, whose grandfather was none other than the celebrity and past member, Jimmy Green. In the meantime, the sprints were clocking up points as per our predictions. We were missing Chris Lambert, who was also in the England Cork team while the English Schools Championships had taken Tim Abeyi and Andrew Bennett plus many of our good youngsters. Nonetheless Graham Beasley ran well to get 2nd in the A 200, while Darren Chin ran very well to win the B 100. The sprint relay squad saw the welcome return of Matt Russell and the first appearance of Ian Deeth. This untried and very young squad led until the line when Woodford Green's sprint sensation Emedolu, who had previously equalled John Regis' League 200 record with 20.52, thrust himself ahead of Graham, but 41.07 was an excellent time for such a youthful and unpractised squad.
And as the afternoon progressed we watched the point scores. After 4 events we were 6th, after 7 events 5th, after 12 events 4th until with only the long relay to go, we were up to 3rd spot. A quick calculation showed that we needed to win and Woodford Green needed to come no higher than 6th for us to get 2nd place.
And we had the team to do it. The Madrid wizards running in a different order with Tim Bayley lead off man. After one lap we were 2nd, WG were 3rd. After a blinding 45.8 split from Chris Rawlinson, we were well clear with WG still 3rd. Newham's Ewan Thomas couldn't make any impression on Chris recording 45.6 for his efforts. On lap 3, we saw our lead extended by Geoff Dearman as WG were pushed down to 4th. As the last circuit progressed, our eyes were not on Sean Baldock but on the race downfield where the Sale athlete was closing on Woodford Green. But to no avail - we had missed second spot by two and a half points.
White knuckles, disappointment and then the realisation that a similar result in Match 4 and we would not be in Europe next year.
This would now make the trip to Jarrow a much more serious affair. Particularly as the second demotion spot could go to any one of Border, Shaftesbury or Sale, and they will be forced to put out teams that could beat all but our best.
Teams: 1 Birchfield 340; 2 Woodford Green with Essex Ladies 311.5; 3 Belgrave H 309; 4 Newham & Essex Bgls 275; 5 Sale H Manchester 259.5; 6 Border H 249; 7 Shaftesbury Barnet H 242; 8 Blackheath H 201.
100m: 5 G.Beasley 10.65/1.4; 1 D.Chin 10.60/0.7.200m: 2 G.Beasley 21.48/-1.3; 5 I.Deeth 22.4/-0.5. 400m: 4 G.Dearman 47.64; 2 T.Bayley 47.71. 800m: 8 M.Miles 1:53.71; 8 S.Barden 1:54.17.1500m: 5 S.Sharp 3:47.95. 5000m: 5 A.Stewart 14:45.76; 4 R.Hayman 15:18.19. 110mH: 4 N.Owen 13.97/0.8; 3 R.Sear 14.7/1.9. 400mH: 2 M.Douglas 49.9. 3000mSC: 4 K.Nash 9:21.01. HJ: 1 B.Challenger 2.20; 2 R.Aspden 1.95. LJ: 5 J.Flynn 6.94/1.4;6 J.Tuson 6.64/1.9. TJ: 3 F.Mepandy 14.74/-0.3; 4 J.Flynn 13.81/0.0. PV: 2 I.Tullett 4.90; 1 B.Flint 4.80. SP: 4 L.Newman 16.66; 6 S.Thompson 12.91. DT: 4 L.Newman 52.21; 4 S.Thompson 45.99. JT: 4 C.Green 60.80; 4 W.Smith 54.53. HT: 1 M.Jones 73.53; 1 D.Smith 65.63. 4x100m: 2 Belgrave 41.07 (M.Russell, I.Deeth, D.Chin, G.Beasley). 4x400m: 1 Belgrave 3:08.18 (T.Bayley, C.Rawlinson, G.Dearman, S.Baldock)
Full result
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.