UK Women's League Division 3, Match 1, Kingsmeadow

Belles growing in strength

There are signs that our women's team is gaining a little in strength and with luck, and in spite of a long trip to Leeds to come later in the season, hopes are high that we should hold our place in the UKWAL this summer. One certainly can't fault the Belles on team spirit and if we could just persuade a few middle distance runners to join Tilly Heaton on the track, we could start shooting for the top half of the division.

Everyone doubled and tripled up and our leading points scorer and only winner Jodie Favell took on additional duties as she scoured the streets of Kingston looking for triple jump ace Michelle Nestor - lost on the way from the station! Great to see Rachel Basford in action: the hammer's her speciality and what a classy competition that was with 41 metres-odd only good enough for 4th, but the long and high jump also received Rachel's attention where she scored even more points. Super-vet Vilma Thompson boosted the heavy events and looks forward to a 'special' birthday coming up this year which should see her setting club records with just about anything than can be launched as a missile. Also scoring good points was Hazel Mead who set three pbs by the end of the afternoon.

Key in the sprints is the ever-competitive Amala Onuora and with Haylene Ryan equally committed in the B events, good points were stacked up here. One lap stars Susan Bovill and the aforementioned Jodie teamed up with these two for a great run in the sprint relay and then Jess Case joined in for the long relay in spite of having already twice raced an entire circuit earlier in the day.

Great work everyone ... and we look forward to match two at Crawley.

100m: 4 A Onuora 12.43; 3 H Ryan 13.35. 200m: 5 A Onuora 26.11; 7 H Ryan 28.23; 400m: 4 S Bovill 57.82; 6 J Case 64.71; 800m: no competitor. 1500m: 8 T Heaton 5:54.94; no B competitor. 3000m: 8 T Heaton 11:58.13; no B competitor. 100mH: 2 J Favell 15.54; 4 J Case 18.67. 400mH 1 J Favell 64.40; 3 J Case 73.09. HJ: 4 R Basford 1.50; 3 M Nestor 1.40. LJ: 2 R Basford 4.89; 3 M Nestor 4.29. TJ: 2 M Nestor 10.54; 2 S Bovill 9.48. PV: no competitor. 2000mSC: no competitor. SP: 8 V Thompson W55 9.11; 5 H Mead 7.10. DT: 7 V Thompson W55 24.88. 4 H Mead 21.58. JT: 2 J Favell 32.01. 4 V Thompson W55 23.71. HT: 4 R Basford 41.16; 4 H Mead 23.20. 4x100m: 2 Belgrave 50.19 (S Bovill, H Ryan, J Favell, A Onuora). 4x400m: 4 Belgrave 4:10.0 (J Case 67.5, A Onuora 63.0, J Favell 61.0, S Bovill 58.5).

Teams: 1 Herne Hill H 256; 2 Reading 196; 3 Liverpool 188; 4 Crawley 161; 5 Channel Islands 160; 6 Belgrave 159; 7 Leeds 129; 8 Coventry 93.

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