Men's Southern League Division 2 (N), Match 2, Colchester

Small team - big heart

In spite of being (unusually) a little short in the throwing department we dropped hardly any points in anything we contested. The sprints were great with Ryan Ffrench-Shand showing how it should be done but all credit to the young guns who travelled all the way to the wilds of North East Essex for non-scoring and relay runs; any of them could have slotted in to win the scoring sprints. Over one lap 17 year-old Vlad stormed the oval and Ben Davies impressed as he stepped up from his more usual 100 and 200 metre events.

Bringing big respectability to the jumps was David Wellstead, thoroughly enjoying himself in the Southern League as an alternative to the British League. Veteran Chris Privett scored well with all things throwable but gave the triple jump a miss this time, leaving this to Simon Lewis who with Tony Hartis popped up all over the place to keep things ticking along. But for every advance there seemed to be a middle distance event following for which we had no cover and instead of romping away with the match we finished just nine points down on the winners but in third spot.

100m: 1 R Ffrench-Shand 11.2; 1 P Graham 12.3; n/s 1r1 P Bammodu U20 11.4; 2r1 P Walker 11.4; 3r1 B Davies 12.4. 200m 1 R Ffrench-Shand 22.6; 1 P Graham 25.4; n/s 1r1 P Bammodu U20 23.4; 2r1 A Williams U20 24.1; P Walker 23.6; R McMillan 28.6. 400m 2 V Woodham-Smith U20 53.7; 1 B Davies 54.8. 800m: 4 R McMillan 2:29.7; no B competitor. 1500m: no competitor. 5000m: no competitor. 110mH: 2 A Hartis 21.7; 1 S Lewis 24.2. 400mH: no competitor. 3000mSC: no competitor. HJ: 3 S Lewis 1.40; 3 P Walker 1.10. LJ: 1 D Wellstead 6.16; 1 S Lewis 5.46. TJ: 1 D Wellstead 13.33; 1 S Lewis 10.89. SP: 3 C Privett M50 10.41; 3 A Hartis 7.47. DT: 2 C Privett M50 33.58; 4 A Hartis 15.63. JT: 3 D Wellstead 39.72; 2 C Privett M50 34.27. HT: 2 C Privett M50 42.02; 3 A Hartis 15.23. 4x100m: 1 Belgrave 46.8 (A Williams, P Walker, R Ffrench-Shand, P Bammodu) 4x400m: 1 Belgrave 3:54.1 (P Graham 60.4, B Davies 55.9, P Walker 59.0, V Woodham-Smith U20 59.0).

Teams: 1 Bedford 86; 2 Braintree 80; 3 Belgrave 77; 4 West Suffolk 75.

League positions after two rounds: 1 Luton 8 (211.5); 2 Bedford 8 (187); 3 Harlow 6 (206.5); 3 Barnet & Dist 6 (196.5); 4 Colchester 6 (195); 5 Huntingdon 6 (192); 6 Belgrave 6 (188); ... 16 teams in all.

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