“Sweatshop” Men’s Surrey CC League Division One, Match 2, Wimbledon Common

Depleted team struggles on the Common

This race was always going to be a struggle, clashing as it did with the following day’s European Cross Trial at Margate. However, the team became a little more depleted when Lloyd Catley was unable to get away from work until late and drove all the way from Southampton, only to just miss the start, and Mal Byansi turned up on the wrong side of the Common and also missed the race. Add to that the fact that we lost Bruce Barton in mid-race with a turned ankle and Phil Carstairs also came out with knee trouble, although admittedly out of the scoring ten, and one can see that we were lucky to place 4th! It was our worst score since 1999 and after two races we have a running total of more than our score for the whole of last season.

But there are always highlights. It was good to see Al Stewart back in action after his stress fracture – he was just ahead of Roger Alsop at the finish – while Padraic Buckley goes from strength to strength and had a good go at getting into the frame. Will Cockerell was again well to the fore – he now takes a well earned break after an amazing sequence of races over the past few months – but perhaps the most outstanding was Rob Tubbs who was up to 32nd spot after having to pull out of the previous week’s South of Thames.

Once again some “good ol’ boys" took the opportunity to fill out the scoring ten with Matt Landmeier achieving that distinction in his first outing in our colours.

South London's Stuart Major always had the race under control and nobody begrudged him his first Surrey League win in over ten years of competition. Meanwhile, AW correspondent Martin Duff's comment that "Belgrave continued their recent slide" brought hoots of laughter from a team manager who knew we had six men in the Reebok Cross looking for berths in the GB&NI team for the European Champs. – with three of them achieving their target. We were second team at Margate with only the Midland Counties ahead of us!

Kim and Paul Collier are to be congratulated for again turning out a good contingent of youngsters. Although we didn’t provide anyone in the first three home in either age group, our depth ensured that we again provided the winning team in the under 17/under 15 race and also repeated our under 13 team runners up slot.

1 Thames Hare & Hounds 188; 2 Herne Hill H 201; 3 Aldershot F&D AC 325; 4 Belgrave H 442; 5 South London H 456; 6 Ranelagh H 530; 7 Reigate Priory AC 625; 8 Guildford & Godalming AC 664; 9 Dulwich Runners 664.
After two matches: 1 Thames H&H 374; 2 Herne Hill H 446; 3 Belgrave H 738; 4 South London H 875; 6 Ranelagh H 1030; 7 Reigate Priory AC 1146; 8 Dulwich R 1296; 9 Guildford & Godalming 1302.
1 S.Major (South London H) 29:29; 2 N.Altmann (TH&H) 29:42; 3 B.Reynolds (TH&H) 29:53; 4 P.Buckley 30:01; 6 W.Cockerell 30:08; 25 A.Stewart 31:21; 27 R.Alsop 31:27; 32 R.Tubbs 31:58; 50 S.Zealy 33:05; 72 W.Lynch 34:27; 77 M.Landmeier; 84 R.Marcus 34:56; 101 P.Tarpey 35:54; 116 M.Nouch 37:22; 131 Don Anderson 39:35; 138 R.Bale 41:50; 147 M.Graham 47:57; 149 finished.

Under 17/Under 15
1 Belgrave 35; 2 South London 88.5; 3 Ranelagh H 92.5; 4 Herne Hill H 124; 5 Dulwich R 125.
1 P.Canavan (South London H) 15:29; 5 J.MacRae 18:34; 6 P.Cowling 19:02; 7 D.Stephens 19:10; 8 R.Collier 19:25; 9 C.Ferrer 19:33.
After two matches: 1 Belgrave H 57.

Under 13
1 South London H 22; 2 Belgrave H 67; 3 Ranelagh H 92.5; 4 Herne Hill H 124; 5 Dulwich R 125.
1 P.Humphrey (South London H) 17:11; 6 A.Graham 18:41; 8 C.Taylor 19:58; 9 T.Ashby 20:10; 14 M.Sandoval 24:34.
After two matches 1 South London H 37; 2 Ranelagh H; 3 Belgrave H.

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