Surrey CC League Division 1, Race 3, Richmond Park

Marty's farewell run

Having come on a bit since his injuries of last Autumn, Martin Dent came to the end of his year with Belgrave with a third place on Ranelagh's course in Richmond Park. On the first of the 2.8 mile circuits it seemed that Marty was on the verge of breaking away and as the leaders completed the lap he certainly looked the most comfortable of a trio that included Vint of Aldershot and Herne Hill's Dave Taylor, celebrating his first day as a veteran. But it was 40 year-old Taylor breaking away on the second lap and as the Belgrave man found himself going through an uncomfortable patch he was also picked up by Vint. Next Friday our man heads back to Australia.

Showing signs of getting back to his best form, Will Cockerell was up a notch to 15th - maybe having timed it right this season with the major events looming - and he was chased by the Belgrave veteran duo of Mike Trees and Knut Hegvold. Relatively unfit, Mike had returned to the UK just in time for the previous week's Berkshire county championships and seven days and some hard sessions later, found the Richmond Park inclines pretty tough.

We witnessed another fine run from Warren Lynch who is now firmly settled into a higher plane of fitness these days. Warren had his eyes firmly fixed on 1500m man Chris Axe, back from a calf muscle injury, and had the beating of an unfit Adam Leane. Once again veteran Phil Carstairs maintained his record of always getting into the scoring ten at some stage of the winter.

If there was ever any doubt that a top-two team position was not going to be Belgrave's in 2003-4, it was completely blown away by a devastating team run from Herne Hill who moved up to within 29 points of Thames who will have to go into the final match with all guns blazing to hold on to the title.

1 D.Taylor M40 (Herne Hill) 28:09; 2 R.Vint (Aldershot F&D) 28:29; 3 M.Dent (Belgrave) 28:40; 4 J.McFarlane (Thames H&H) 28:59; 6 J.Downes (Herne Hill) 29:11; 7 S.Major (South London) 29:21; 8 A.Moses (Reigate Priory) 29:26; 9 A.Weir (Thames H&H) 29:29; 10 E.Prickett (Reigate Priory) 29:39; 15 W.Cockerell 30:02; 23 M.Trees M40 30:58; 25 K.Hegvold M40 31:03; 50 C.Axe 32:27; 51 W.Lynch 32:30; 52 A.Leane 32:36; 59 M.Humphrey 33:00; 62 P.Carstairs M40 33:12; 64 S.Zealey 33:25; 71 R.Marcus 33:50; 76 R.Poulter 33:59; 95 T.O'Neill M50 35:17; 98 A.Bicourt 35:47; 112 M.Nouch M45 36:43; 120 A.Cowmeadow 37:49; 122 H.Corbett M45 38:00; 124 S.Baxendale 38:06; 144 J.Sturge U20 47:16.

1 Herne Hill (1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 21, 26, 28, 31, 32) 173 - 2nd after 3 races with 665

2 Thames H&H (4, 9, 17, 18, 20, 24, 27, 29, 33, 35) 216 - 1st 636

3 Belgrave (3, 15, 23, 25, 45, 46, 47, 52, 55, 57) 368 - 3rd 1084

4 South London (7, 13, 14, 39, 49, 50, 56, 60, 61, 62) 411 - 5th 1424

5 Ranelagh (16, 19, 30, 37, 40, 43, 48, 54, 66, 70) 423 - 6th 1450

6 Aldershot F&D (2, 22, 36, 42, 51, 59, 63, 67, 82, 83) 507 - 4th 1120

7 Reigate Priory (8, 10, 41, 44, 58, 64, 71, 75, 79, 81) 531 - 7th 1634

8 Stragglers (34, 38, 68, 69, 72, 73, 74, 77, 78, 80) 663 - 8th 1987

9 Boxhill R (53, 65, 76, 87, 87, 87, 87, 87, 87, 87) 803 - 9th 2285

Under 17/Under 15: 1 M.Lloyd (South London) 16:06; 7 J.Macrae 17:53; 13 P.Cowling 19:56.

Teams: 1 South London 22; 2 Ranelagh 74; 3 Belgrave 105; 4 Herne Hill 109. Overall: 1 South London 170; 2 Herne Hill 211; 3 Ranelagh 334; 4 Belgrave 365;

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