Men's British Athletics League Division One - 2004: Match 4, Terence McMillan Stadium, Plaistow
Hot competition -
but we are British Champions for an 8th successive year
1 Belgrave H 340; 2 Woodford Green with Essex Ladies 308; 3 Birchfield H 285; 4 Sale H Manchester 264; 5 Enfield & Haringey AC 258; 6 Thames Valley H 258; 7 Shaftesbury Barnet H 254; 8 Newham & Essex Beagles 218.
This, the last match of the season, promised to be hot in more ways than one, with air temperatures soaring above 30C (and the track too hot to walk on) plus a feast of high quality athletics. A strong Belgrave squad had been assembled in the knowledge that three teams were fighting to avoid relegation. As it turned out Belgrave were to cruise to a third successive win but a tremendous fight back by Sale was to result in TVH and a surprised Shaftesbury Barnet being relegated. Or maybe not, as Shaftesbury launched a complaint against the eligibility of one of Sale’s athletes, which, if upheld, would radically alter the lower order positions – so close was the fight for points.
The opening four field events saw a lone Mick Jones again throw over 73m to win the hammer. A delayed pole vault (equipment failure) got to Cameron Johnston who ran through three times at 4.60 but junior Roy Collier produced a huge pb of 3.40 to gain unexpected points in the B comp. Leith Marar made a welcome return to Belgrave colours and gained good discus points ably supported by Chris Gearing who produced a pb to ratchet up the points total. Chris was later to launch the shot to 16.99 for another personal best ever. Few of the spectators realised that he is still only 17 years old and ranked 5th in the world for his age. Meanwhile in a high quality long jump junior Bernard Yeboah produced a 7.48 pb into a headwind. Darragh O’Farrell backed up well to win the B and we were on our way. Darragh later showed his past decathlete credentials with a creditable support performance for Tom Dobbing in the javelin and also the shot.
The track events kicked off at 1.45pm and saw Matt Douglas, tired after his exertions at the previous night’s Grand Prix, do enough to ensure max A points supported by a silver position from an over raced and tired Ryan Dinham in the B. Next up the A 800 with Tim Bayley guesting to help training partner, and Athens bound, Michael East to a fast 800 victory which was only .09 sec outside the League record set by Seb Coe in 1987. Steve Sharp followed through the opening lap in 53 secs (which was possibly a 400 best) and struggled thereafter. Tim Abeyie was another who had raced at Crystal Palace the night before; slipped blocks put paid to his 100m aspirations here, although he recovered for third spot, while Graham Beasley ran slightly faster to get fourth spot in the B – of such high quality was the sprinting. Wade Bennett Jackson (WBJ) then won the first of two guest 100’s in a pb 10.45sec with zero wind – a time which would have won both the A and B events; another 17 year old proving that youth need not be a handicap! He later won the B 200 and contributed to the fastest Belgrave sprint relay time of the season.
Meanwhile Ben Challenger and Samson Oni were winning the high jump, A= and B, followed by near max points in the triple jump won by Julien Kapek, making his first appearance since joining Belgrave last year, and well backed by David Wellstead who had an effort close to 14.90m judged to be a marginal foul. Another 17 year old, Gavin Selway, got thrown into the deep end in the 400 A and ran close to his best while decathlete William Sharman ran his first 400 of the season to get good points in the B.
Spare some sympathy for the 5000m boys who ran in the heat of the day at 14.50 pm. Mark Miles sat on the leader for 10 laps before sprinting the last 800 to take 13 seconds off Irish International Fiachra Lombard. Jonathan Blackledge won the B race by a similar margin to ensure another max points result. More good points in the sprint hurdles with Dominic Girdler showing he is now fully recovered from an injury which has taken more than a year to mend. Graham Beasley then almost made it max points in the 200m. He was given second spot in the A in a fast time but couldn’t be separated on time from the winner Paul Hession – it was that close. Spencer Barden was determined to give Matt Shone a tough race by taking out the 1500 but Shone stuck like a leach only to produce his usual fast finish to grab victory – a quite remarkable effort after his earlier 800 silver. Darren Gauson ran well in a physical scrap behind the leaders to get third spot in the B.
And so to the closing stages.
Dominic Girdler led out the sprint relay squad who had been instructed to get the baton round with safe changes. Then to Graham who ran his usual storming back straight with Wade taking the bend to hand over to Tim Abeyie in third spot. Tim gave it some welly to make up ground and while the team managers thought he hadn’t quite made it the photo finish equipment was to prove otherwise. A fine and fast win from an untried quartet. It was good to see Kevin Nash toe the line for the chase having started training just a week ago following injury. Sadly he was the sole representative for Belgrave, which shows our lack of depth in this specialist event. (Mind you that rather reflects the position in the country as a whole.) Kevin has three weeks to regain some fitness for the Cup Final.
And so to the last event, the long relay, with all team managers checking points positions to see what was required. Our squad knew that there was no pressure but Graeme Oudney was out to prove a point after a disappointing B 800. He ran an excellent split of 49.4, as too did Tim Bayley with a pleasing 47.7 last leg to seal our match and League wins. President Don Anderson received the trophy for our 8th consecutive year as Champions and the target is now 10 in a row. With so many up and coming juniors who would bet against this squad! See you in 2005.
100m: A (nwi) 1 D.Plummer (Newham &EB) 10.48; 2 T.Edgar (Woodford GwEL) 10.55; 3 Tim Abeyie (Belgrave) 10.60; 4 G.Eastman (Enfield &H) 10.63; 5 P.Hession (Shaftesbury B) 10.73; 6 J.Thomas (Birchfield) 10.81; 7 A.Yambasu (Thames V) 10.95; 8 G.Jones (Sale HM) 11.05. B (nwi) 1 M.Findlay (Newham &EB) 10.47; 2 R.Moseley (Shaftesbury B) 10.57; 3 H.Ogunyemi (Enfield &H) 10.58; 4 Graham Beasley (Belgrave) 10.59; 5 S.Barns (Birchfield) 10.83; 6 C.Wilson (Woodford GwEL) 10.84; 7 Y.Bojang (Sale HM) 10.99; 8 L.Green (Thames V) 11.07. n/s (0.0) 1 Wade Bennett-Jackson (Belgrave U20) 10.45.
200m: A (0.0) 1 P.Hession (Shaftesbury B) 21.00; 2 Graham Beasley (Belgrave) 21.00; 3D.Plummer (Newham &EB) 21.21; 4 L.Baptiste (Enfield &H) 21.48; 5 G.Jones (Sale HM) 21.61; 6 C.Wilson (Woodford GwEL) 21.86; 7 J.Thomas (Birchfield) 21.90; 8 A.Yambasu (Thames V) 22.93. B (-0.7) 1 Wade Bennett-Jackson (Belgrave U20) 21.40; 2 M.Findlay (Newham &EB) 21.41; 3 G.Eastman (Enfield &H) 21.71; 4 A.Fugallo (Shaftesbury B) 21.94; 5 J.Moore (Birchfield) 22.29; 6 L.Green (Thames V) 22.36; 7 Y.Bojang (Sale HM) 22.38; 8 A.Potter (Woodford GwEL) 22.56.
400m: A 1 G.Hedman (Woodford GwEL) 46.62; 2 A.Fernandez (Thames V) 46.88; 3 D.Hough (Shaftesbury B) 47.86; 4 D.Ladejo (Birchfield) 47.90; 5 R.Nicholls (Enfield &H) 48.52; 6 J.Stewart (Sale HM) 48.94; 7 Gavin Selway (Belgrave U20) 49.19; 8 L.Dale (Newham &EB) 50.72. B 1 R.Tabares (Birchfield) 47.78; 2 L.Grant (Woodford GwEL) 48.27; 3 K.Appiah (Enfield &H) 48.63; 4 Will Sharman (Belgrave) 49.03; 5 D.Clark (Thames V) 50.05; 6 A.Webster (Sale HM) 51.06; 7 P.Octave (Shaftesbury B) 51.08.
800m: A 1 M.East (Newham &EB) 1:46.27; 2 M.Shone (Woodford GwEL) 1:47.84; 3 L.Besenyi (Birchfield) 1:48.89; n/s T.Bayley (Belgrave) 1:49.08; 4 S.Bailey (Sale HM) 1:50.47; 5 D.St Clair (Enfield &H) 1:51.27; 6 Stephen Sharp (Belgrave) 1:52.10; 7 A.Dean (Shaftesbury B) 1:52.38; 8 L.Chandy 1:54.28. B 1 A.Brown (Woodford GwEL) 1:52.21; 2 P.Lipman (Shaftesbury B) 1:53.19; 3 N.Gamester (Enfield &H) 1:53.20; 4 A.Hennessy (Thames V) 1:53.21; 5 R.Goodwin (Sale HM) 1:53.42; 6 A.Ali (Newham &EB) 1:54.86; 7 Graeme Oudney (Belgrave U20) 1:55.08; 8 D.Stevens (Birchfield) 1:55.55.
1500m: A 1 M.Shone (Woodford GwEL) 3:45.93; 2 Spencer Barden (Belgrave) 3:47.57; P.Tedd (Sale HM) 3:51.69; 4 M.Whitehouse (Birchfield) 3:54.08; 5 T.Bedford (Shaftesbury B) 3:55.18; 6 K.Bowditch (Newham &EB) 3:55.35; 7 K.Johnstone (Thames V) 4:01.00; 8 L.Wells (Enfield &H) 4:15.24. B 1 S.North (Sale HM) 3:52.17; 2 P.Moores (Birchfield) 3:54.97; 3 Darren Gauson (Belgrave) 3:55.16; 4 A.Brown (Woodford GwEL) 3:56.79; 5 A.Hay (Thames V) 4:05.70; 6 T.Waldron (Shaftesbury B) 4:08.50; 7 R.Fowler (Enfield &H) 4:15.82; 8 A.Mohammed (Newham &EB) 4:25.06.
5000m: A 1 Mark Miles (Belgrave) 14:10.76; 2 F.Lombard (Woodford GwEL) 14:23.20; 3 P.Jacobs (Enfield &H) 14:27.26; 4 D.Wardle (Thames V) 14:27.99; 5 P.Green (Sale HM) 14:42.18; 6 K.Kyereme (Shaftesbury B) 14:50.86; 7 A.Sweatman (Birchfield) 15:33.37; 8 M.Wilkinson (Newham &EB) 16:35.26. B 1 Jonathan Blackledge (Belgrave) 15:01.85; 2 R.Russell (Thames V) 15:11.91; 3 D.Augustus (Sale HM) 15:40.65; 4 T.Penfold (Birchfield) 16:00.88; 5 P.Simons (Shaftesbury B) 16:03.36; 6 C.Brogan (Woodford GwEL) 17:16.11; 7 D.Christian (Enfield &H) 18:05.89.
110mH: A (nwi) 1 A.Scott (Shaftesbury B) 14.06; 2 Dominic Girdler (Belgrave) 14.18; 3 R.Alleyne (Woodford GwEL 14.60; 4 C.Baillie (Birchfield) 14.73; 5 C.Roberts (Thames V) 14.86; 6 R.Henry (Enfield &H) 15.00; 7 P.Monoghan (Sale HM) 15.03; 8 N.Oboh (Newham &EB) 19.84. B (0.4) 1 D.Bradley (Birchfield) 14.50; 2 T.Carey (Shaftesbury B) 14.66; 3 C.Akpabio (Woodford GwEL) 14.80; 4 A.Zulewski (Thames V) 15.03; 5 M.Winship (Enfield &H) 15.22; 6 Ryan Dinham (Belgrave U20) 15.78; 7 T.Gaye (Sale HM) 15.87.
400mH: A 1 Matt Douglas (Belgrave) 51.38; 2 B.Sumner (Enfield &H) 52.33; 3 R.Scott (Wopodford GwEL) 53.11; 4 E.Betts (Thames V) 53.52; 5 T.Carey (Shaftesbury B) 54.43; 6 D.Brandwood (Birchfield) 55.66; 7 A.Webster (Sale HM) 63.27. B 1 K.Nomura (Enfield &H) 52.62; 2 Ryan Dinham (Belgrave U20) 52.91; 3 T.Patton (Thames V) 54.80; 4 M.Dingley (Birchfield) 56.17; 5 J.Wright (Woodford GwEL) 56.22; 6 D.Hardman (Sale HM) 66.11; 7 E.Malloch (Shaftesbury B) 66.16.
3000mSC: A 1 M.Warmby (Newham &EB) 9:04.19; 2 A.Hennessy (Thames V) 9:06.43; 3 T.Payn (Birchfield) 9:09.00; 4 J.Bailey (Sale HM) 9:11.99; 5 R.Williams (Shaftesbury B) 9:13.45; 6 Kevin Nash (Belgrave) 9:42.31; 7 M.Davies (Woodford GwEL) 9:47.43; 8. S.Mitchell (Enfield &H) 9:49.31. B 1 G.Gornish (Sale HM) 9:18.28; 2 R.McMillan (Birchfield) 9:26.33; 3 E.Malloch (Shaftesbury B) 9:48.93; 4 G.Irving (Thames V) 10:08.34; 5 A.Norman (Enfield &H) 10:27.44; 6 M.Griffith (Woodford GwEL) 10:42.71.
4x100m Relay: 1 Belgrave 40.61 (Dominic Girdler, Graham Beasley, Wade Bennett-Jackson U20, Tim Abeyie); 2 Woodford GwEL 40.65; 3 Newham &EB 40.65; 4 Shaftesbury B 41.05; 5 Enfield &H 41.10; 6 Thames V 42.06; 7 Sale HM 42.42.
4x400m Relay: 1 Birchfield 3:13.51; 2 Woodford GwEL 3:14.26; 3 Shaftesbury B 3:15.93; 4 Belgrave 3:16.26 (Gavin Selway U20, Ryan Dinham U20, Graeme Oudney U20, Tim Bayley); 5 Enfield &H 3:21.03; 6 Thames V 3:25.58; 7 Sale HM 3:27.61; 8 Newham &EB 3:35.91.
High Jump: A =1 R.Mitchell (Sale HM) & Ben Challenger (Belgrave) 2.20; 3 D.Grant (Woodford GwEL) 2.15; 4 A.Scarr (Enfield &H) 2.10; 5 D.Stone (Shaftesbury B) 2.05; 6 N.Oboh (Newham &EB) 1.90; 7 R.Wood (Thames V) 1.90; 8 E.Dunford (Birchfield) 1.85. B 1 Samson Oni (Belgrave) 2.15; 2 M.Crowley (Enfield &H) 2.05; 3 B.McConville (Woodford GwEL) 2.00; 4 D.Etheridge (Sale HM) 1.85; 5 H.Winthrop (Shaftesbury B) 1.85; 6 J.Moore (Birchfield) 1.80; 7 A.Zulewski (Thames V) 1.80.
Long Jump: A 1 J.Moore (Birchfield) 7.76w/2.1; 2 D.Ritchie 7.58/0.5; 3 Bernard Yeboah (Belgrave U20) 7.48/-0.5; 4 JJ Jegede (Newham &EB) 7.12w/2.1; 5 L.Burgess (Enfield &H) 7.01/0.4; 6 S.Benson (Thames V) 6.87/1.7; 7 A.Scott (Shaftesbury B) 6.62/-0.2; 8 J.Wright (Woodford GwEL) 6.41/-0.3. B 1 Darragh O'Farrell (Belgrave) 7.09/1.0; 2 L.Edwards (Newham &EB) 7.05/1.0; 3 J.Ramos (Enfield &H) 6.77w/2.5; 4 S.Nash (Thames V) 6.48/0.4; 5 D.Grant (Woodford GwEL) 6.36/-0.5; 6 P.Ferdinand (Birchfield) 6.12/-1.1; 7 H.Winthrop (Shaftesbury B) 5.60/-0.8; 8 R.Reeder (Sale HM) 5.48w/2.2.
Triple Jump: A (nwi) 1 Julien Kapek (Belgrave) 15.06; 2 S.Benson (Thames V) 14.95; 3 J.Hilton (Sale) 14.95; 4 P.Ferdinand (Birchfield) 14.89; 5 T.Salou (Newham &EB) 14.88; 6 S.Ojo (Woodford GwEL) 14.26; 7 T.Ikinsaye (Enfield &H) 13.07; 8 A.Grant (Shaftesbury B) 11.03. B (nwi) 1 E.Anomelechi (Thames V) 14.16; 2 David Wellstead (Belgrave) 14.13; 3 D.Emmanuelle (Birchfield) 13.62; 4 K.Newton (Woodford GwEL) 13.43; 5 M.Labor (Enfield &H) 12.76; 6 JJ Jegede (Newham &EB) 12.14; 7 R.Reeder (Sale HM) 11.54.
Pole Vault: A 1 S.Simpson (Birchfield) 5.00; 2 C.North (Woodford GwEL) 5.00; 3 M.Christie (Sale HM) 4.80; 4 Cameron Johnston (Belgrave) 4.40; 5 G.Conlon (Thames V) 4.40; 6 S.Day (Shaftesbury B) 4.20; 7 P.Hoad (Enfield &H) 3.60. B 1 B.McConville (Woodford GwEL) 4.60; 2 R.Thickpenny (Thames V) 4.20; 3 E.Dunford (Birchfield) 3.80; 4 J.Green (Enfield &H) 3.60; 5 Roy Collier (Belgrave U20) 3.40; 6 W.Huber (Shaftesbury B) 3.20; 7 G.Plunkett (Sale HM) 2.10.
Shot: A 1 S.Rider (Birchfield) 18.30; 2 E.Van Vreumingen (Thames V) 17.96; 3 M.Proctor (Newham &EB) 17.96; 4 Chris Gearing (Belgrave U20) 16.99; 5 M.Goldbourne (Sale HM) 16.66; 6 A.Soalla-Bell (Shaftesbury B) 14.98; 7 S.Fricker (Woodford GwEL) 13.98; 8 F.Miele (Enfield &H) 13.71. B 1 J.Nicholl (Sale HM) 14.90; 2 S.Litton-Hayes (Newham &EB) 14.71; 3 N.Vince (Shaftesbury B) 14.22; 4 G.Sluiter (Thames V) 14.12; 5 E.Dunford (Birchfield) 13.60; 6 C.Saggers (Enfield &H) 13.48; 7 S.Bennett (Woodford GwEL) 12.56; 8 Darragh O'Farrell (Belgrave) 11.82.
Discus: A 1 E.Udechuku (Woodford GwEL) 58.97; 2 E.Van Vreumingen (Thames V) 52.43; 3 M.Goldbourne (Sale HM) 51.59; 4 Leith Marar (Belgrave) 50.95; 5 F.Miele (Enfield &H) 48.70; 6 S.Litton-Hayes (Newham &EB) 48.22; 7 N.Thompson (Shaftesbury B) 46.92; 8 S.Rider (Birchfield) 46.58. B 1 M.Wiseman (Sale HM) 49.31; 2 G.Sluiter (Thames V) 47.05; 3 G.Hagan (Shaftesbury B) 44.66; 4 Chris Gearing (Belgrave U20) 44.52; 5 S.Hale (Birchfield) 44.36; 6 S.Fricker (Woodford GwEL) 44.35; 7 M.Proctor (Newham &EB) 43.90; 8 N.Woolcott (Enfield &H) 43.43.
Javelin: A 1 A.Lovett (Enfield &H) 70.94; 2 G.Plunkett (Sale HM) 65.96; 3 Tom Dobbing (Belgrave) 65.46; 4 D.Parker (Shaftesbury B) 64.10; 5 A.van Demeve (Birchfield) 63.12; 6 S.Bennett (Woodford GwEL) 57.20; 7 J.Lundman (Newham &EB) 55.13; 8 S.Millar (Thames V) 51.13. B 1 M.Tarren (Birchfield) 60.56; 2 L.Doran (Enfield &H) 60.20; 3 G.Allan (Shaftesbury B) 50.12; 4 L.Houslin (Thames V) 48.85; 5 Darragh O'Farrell (Belgrave) 47.26; 6 D.Carter (Woodford GwEL) 40.06; 7 T.Gaye (Sale HM) 34.84.
Hammer: A 1 Mike Jones (Belgrave M40) 73.25; W.Beauchamp (Newham &EB) 70.51; 3 M.Floyd (Sale HM) 67.38; 4 A.Frost (Woodford GwEL) 66.84; 5 C.Saggers (Enfield &H) 64.02; 6 M.Bell (Birchfield) 62.83; 7 G.Allan (Shaftesbury B) 57.27; 8 E.Van Vreumingen (Thames V) 38.37. B 1 S.Bown (Newham &EB) 66.02; 2 C.Howe (Woodford GwEL) 58.73; 3 G.Holder (Shaftesbury B) 57.00; 4 S.Peacock (Birchfield) 55.79; 5 N.Efobi (Enfield &H) 43.33; 6 G.Sluiter (Thames V) 25.16; 7 T.Davison (Sale HM) 21.95.
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.