Men's British Athletics League Division One - 2004: Match 2, Copthall Stadium, Enfield, Pictures
What a comeback ...
1 Belgrave H 333; 2 Shaftesbury Barnet H 291.5; 3 Newham & Essex Beagles 290; 4 Enfield & Haringey AC 266.5; 5 Woodford Green w Essex Ladies 265; 6 Sale H Manchester 251; 7 Thames Valley H 250; 8 Birchfield H 241.
Match two proved as exciting, unexpected and unpredictable as the first. And the final result was an almost complete reversal of Match 1, meaning that the Bels had climbed from fourth spot to a clear League lead in an astonishing come back which not even the team managers had expected.
Team selection had been problematic with a number of athletes opting to compete in the next day's Loughborough meet while several were choosing to compete on both days and a few just staying with the League match.
The start was not as promising as Match 1 with reduced points in the hammer, pole vault and 400 hurdles. Both Matt Douglas and Mick Jones suffered rare defeats but Cameron Johnston equalled his pb in finishing a creditable fourth in the pole vault and narrowly missed his 5 metre attempts. But then the track kicked in to move us gradually ahead. A star studded 100m saw a rare defeat for Sale’s Darren Campbell while Tim Abeyie, just back from the States managed fourth in the A 100 closely followed by a Graham Beasley win in the B 100 - later followed by Graham winning the A 200 and contributing to a fine sprint relay win. Then Chris Moss and Stephen Sharp collected our only max points of the day with two fine wins in the 800m while 800 specialist Tim Bayley went for the longer race and won the A 1500 in fine style front running the last 2 laps and using his strength to resist the surge of the chasing bunch.
In the sprint hurdles Dom Girdler made a welcome return after a year lost through injury and was rewarded with a legal sub 14 second clocking. Decathlete Will Sharman then ran a pb in the B 110 hurdles to gain second spot. More points and our lead was stretching. And in the 400m Sean Baldock in only his third race of the season reduced his season’s best by over a second, recording 46.50, but dipped early and had to settle for second. But the big surprise was junior Gavin Selway who was drafted in to the B 400 and came through the field to get another fine second spot.
The throws added much better points than Match 1 and the discus saw the welcome return of Abi Ekoku who had not picked up the discus this year but, working from memory, approached 50m to win the B event. Meanwhile Scot Thompson massed big points competing in the discus, shot and javelin. Chris Gearing who earlier in the week had gained a World Junior qualifying mark with the 6kg shot proceeded to putt the senior implement to a new pb of 16.60m. Things were really looking up.
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.