"Sweatshop Men's Surrey CC League Division One, Petersham

It's third again in the Surrey League

With the whole world and his wife enjoying the Richmond Park sunshine it was a challenge simply to get into the Pembroke Lodge car park and as race time neared we still had guys queued up in the traffic. But somehow we got thirteen onto the start line - with our unlucky thirteenth, Robert Norville, arriving just as the field were about to be sent away. The one or two minutes delay as we attempted to get Robert a number gave our rivals the chance launch into a bit of "end of series" banter - "Just take your time Belgrave, we've got all afternoon!"

The main talking point was whether Herne Hill Harriers could pull back the 29 points that separated them from Thames. One thing was for sure though: Belgrave were far beyond challenging and indeed had their work cut out to remain among the top three teams. As it turned out we were a poor sixth on the day but did manage to hang onto third place overall.

And as for Herne Hill, there were red and black vests to spare in the top thirty and at the end of the series, after two hours and twenty miles of racing, they had managed to overhaul the Hare & Hounds by just six points.

Our own Stephen Sharp was in fine fettle, taking it steady for the first lap, albeit leading by thirty metres, before letting it rip over the second circuit and stretching his lead to beyond half a minute at the finish. The Skipper is getting back into good shape and was well up, but we had to go too far back before the bulk of our runners were in and lost a lot of ground to Ranelagh, South London - and Hercules Wimbledon, who seem to be fighting back well after a long spell in the lower divisions. If we want to be serious about challenging for the league title in the next few years we are going to have to change our attitude somewhat.

1 S Sharp 28:10; 2 N Talbot (Thames) 28:44; 3 K Quinn (Herne H) 28:54; 14 W Cockerell 29:55; 45 K Hegvold M45 31:18; 46 M Byansi 31:20; 65 T Weeks 32:03; 67 J Fairbourn 32:11; 85 D Mason 33:01; 91 J Webb 33:22; 98 R Norville 33:51; 111 S Zealey M40 34:33; 130 M Humphrey 35:52; 135 R Poulter M40 36:12; 160 P Cross M50 38:53.

Teams: 1 Herne Hill H 152; 2 Thames H&H 185; 3 Hercules Wimbledon 423; 4 South London H 437; 5 Ranelagh H 437; 6 Belgrave H 500; 7 Guildford &G 563; 8 Reigate Priory AC 637; 9 Wimbledon W 761.

Final League positions: 1 Herne Hill H 730; 2 Thames H&H 736; 3 Belgrave H 1519; 4 Ranelagh H 1559; 5 Hercules Wimbledon AC 1793; 6 South London H 2194; 7 Reigate Priory AC 2335; 8 Guildford &G 2435; 9 Wimbledon W 3079.

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