Secretary's Report to AGM 2005
It has been quite a bittersweet year for our club with notable success mixed with sadness and some painful defeats. However, although club athletics in this country is at an uncertain crossroads, Belgravians can trust that their club is in robust health and that we can look to the future with confidence and optimism. The securing of London’s Olympic bid has boosted our profile, and people often look to us first when taking up athletics and joining a club. Our reputation is greater than ever, and stretches far. When a Polish athlete, his sister and father vacationed in London last week, my house was, naturally, their first port of call. Could he do some high jumps for Belgrave on his visit to England? Season over, I had to dash his dreams but it was still a telling moment.
We were saddened by the death of Arthur Penstone this year whose most notable contribution to club life was the care and attention he devoted to Belgrave Hall. For about 50 years Arthur’s expertise as an electrician and handyman ensured the Hall remained in good condition. The club was also devastated to learn of the death of our friend, committee member, past-president and British League manager, John Jeffery. John worked tirelessly for the club in so many areas and we owe a lot of our recent success, prestige and reputation to him. We all miss him dearly, none more so than Bill Laws, John’s great friend and co-British League manager. Bill has now managed the team for a stunning 25 years in which he has dragged us from the bottom of the pile to many years of national dominance. At the end of the season Bill at first spoke of possibly taking a step back. Whatever you decide Bill, I should like to thank you on behalf of all of us for a quarter of a Century of tireless work.
We set up a partnership with Sutton & District AC this year whereby, in track and field, certain Sutton athletes may now compete for Belgrave and, to a lesser extent, vice versa. We field composite Junior and Young Athletes Teams and officials of both clubs also get together to assist in the running of the meetings of either club. Belgrave Harriers used Sutton Arena for the first time for home meetings.
On the field of play, last winter was highly rewarding for the road and cross-country section of the club with our members travelling the length and breadth of the country in search of silverware and often finding it. Our men struck gold six times and came second in four other high-profile events. We own all four major road-relay titles, and regained the prestigious National 12-stage title with a team of breath-taking depth and quality. I wonder how many other clubs in the world could have troubled us on that day. Our cross-country results were solid but after the wonderful win at the National in 2004, I detect a little underperformance, and our 8th and 6th places at the Southern and National were rather a shame, but, remember, a few short years ago we would have been ecstatic with such returns. Closer to home we were happy to reclaim the South of the Thames Championship.
Our women now have almost every cog in place for an assault on titles of their own. The most important cog is imperiously in place, as in Catherine Eastham the women boast a team manager every bit as inspirational, thorough and determined as what the men enjoy. Some brief highlights include placing second at the Southern six-stage relay, defending their title at the Reigate Priory relay and a terrific 12th place at the National cross. They almost won the Surrey cross-country League but were just pipped in a dramatic final race by Ranelagh.
In track and field our women, expertly guided by Cynthia James and Bob Bridges, were undefeated in division 4 of the UK League, and march to division 3 from where we hope again to win promotion.
Our male track and field team finally had to relinquish our British League title after a terrific battle with Woodford Green. Nine titles in a row was not to be, but all credit to Woodford who have been nipping at our heels for several seasons now and fully deserved their win. We appeared to be particularly fallible in the sprinting events this year which is unusual for us, but our luck was definitely out with a whole group of the speedsters out of form, injured or competing elsewhere at the same time. In the Jubilee Cup we had one of those really dire days that sneak up uninvited every few years and failed to qualify for the final, as Rugby pipped us by two points.
It has been a quiet year for our walkers as they linger near the bottom of the slope with an aim to get back up again. We are still turning out teams for the local events and competing regularly. Unfortunately, we have no class performers these days, apart from our 2nd claim member Estle Viljoen who spent much of last year off injured but who has now regained form to recently take 2nd place in the National 20kms. Our second lady walker, Maureen Noel completed the London Marathon (running) and recently won the National 50kms. Paul King our long distance performer completed the Colchester 100 last year and more recently the Kings Lynn 100 and was 4th in this year’s National 50kms. The icon that is Carl Lawton finished more races than anyone else in the country last year.
Our juniors are often the victim of their own success with our best athletes on international duty during league matches. Consequently the junior men were relegated from the Southern premier division and join the Brent League. However, our junior girls won the Brent League and new rules dictate our boys and girls will now perform as a joint team in that league next summer. This is all much more convenient and suits us well.
In my list of outstanding individual athletes over the past year, special mentions should go to the following: Mark Miles placed a tremendous 3rd in the National cross; Harry Aikines-Ayreetey won both the 100 and 200-metres at the World Youth Games in Marrakesh; Wade Bennett-Jackson was 2nd in the 100-metres at the Norwich Union Grand Prix under-20 race; and Chris Gearing continues to show great promise in the shot and recently won the UK Challenge Final to go with his win at the Inter-counties Under-20 event. Javelin thrower Goldie Sayers placed twelfth in the World Championships and fourth in the World Student Games; while Birhan Dagne, our national cross-country champion from 2004 continues to shine in road races all over the country. Finally, and most excitingly, in Tim Benjamin we could have the next big thing in British athletics. After placing 5th at the World Championships, Tim has just lowered our club 400-metre record to 44:56 in Monaco, to put him within a couple of tenths of Iwan Thomas’s British record, which Roger Black feels Tim will one day smash.
In closing, our merry band of committee members and officials are working as hard as ever to ensure the club runs smoothly and that we continue to offer our members terrific value. All of our officials give up their time for free of course and deserve our humble gratitude: it is sobering to compare us for instance with the golf club I play at, which spent £323,000 on administration expenses last year. No such luxury for us, but if there’s ever anything you’d like to know about how you can assist or volunteer with the running of the club, don’t hesitate to let us know. The Belgrave story is now 118 years old and there’s no reason why the club can’t celebrate its 125th, 150th and 200th anniversaries as one of the great organizations in British sport. Thank you.
William Cockerell, General Secretary, September 2005
Restored from the club's earlier website, belgraveharriers.com, and published here as originally written.