ATW Met League race 5: Women win, men third

In the final ATW Metropolitan League CC race of the season, held at Merchant Taylors School in Moor Park, our women signed off with an impressive flourish, winning their race, while the men were third. This left the women in third place overall in the table, and the men runners-up. Sarah Bird and Linzi Snow were revelations in the women's race, while Martyn Cryer rediscovered his early-season form by leading our men home.

Having won their race at Horsenden Hill after a pretty average performance at Ally Pally our women, like the men, knew that even with the tastiest line up of the season they would have 87 points worth of improvement to make to challenge Shaftesbury for second, let alone conquer Serpentine's 103 point lead for the title. Nonetheless, having heeded Reporter Jenny Thomas's clarion call to arms (or rather, legs) Woodettes unperturbed, if a little wistful for favourite Ruislip woods, turned out at superb Moor Park in quality and quantity.

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Blonde Ambition closes 6 in 16

And so it was, as sleet turned to freezing drizzle, that 13 Woodettes gathered for the gun for this flat and firm finale in the "immaculate" grounds of the Merchant Taylors School. The signs were already looking good as the line up - which equalled Claybury's record - looked almost identical to the winning team from Horsenden Hill. Add to that wildcard ingredients Linzi Snow and Sara Bird, stir, and see what happens.

After what seemed like an interminable wait for the gun, which the keener girls used for last minute strides as others remarked on the surprising amount of heat being generated by the static of 131 nylon vests, the smallest women's field this season set off at a blistering pace around the perimeter of the main field. Our girls in front were led out by Emily Moss, who eventually finished in 13, but first home for Woodford with an absolutely cracking run was Sara Bird (2) 20 seconds behind the leader Rachel Felton of League runners-up Shaftesbury, who took the overall individual title for the season. This was Woodford Women's highest placing all season and Bird's second Met League, the first on Stevenage's similar terrain where she had been a promising 14th, around 20 seconds behind Georgie-Lou Sales (currently injured) and Lauren Stewart. The hard yards have paid dividends as on this slightly longer course she put 1'40" between herself and Stewart, who also favours the hard, fast ones. Next home with another brilliant performance was pal Linzi Snow (4) 17" behind Bird. It is of course notoriously difficult to forecast snow with any degree of accuracy and Linzi herself admitted, not having raced for around four years, that she was a wildcard, but we'll take that if it delivers top ten. Next in after 9" was talented U20 Sidnie Sales (7) back on form with her second top ten placing of the season and third U20 prize in three appearances. Moss (13) 44" behind Sales was next, having perhaps gone out too hard, but no doubt pleased to have cast aside the DNF demon from Claybury where her season got off to a galling start. 5th home Dani Nimmock (13), with another strong and promising performance, was delighted to have nudged up one place since Horsenden and following on 10" later to complete the all-blonde fixture winning team was Lauren Stewart (16), with her third 16th place this season - perhaps just off her best, 11th this season, as she adjusts to a new job, but as one of our keystone talents, beautifully consistent.

Our 6 in 16 was the best on the day, our season's best and trumped 6 in 36 runner's up Shaftesbury, helping us to halve their lead over us to 46 points; and League winner's Serpentine's 6 in 19, who led us by 83 points in the end. We closed in a creditable third place overall. Race Day Captain Alex Wardle said "We set our ambition high at the start of the season by wanting to win this League. We didn't achieve it this time, but coming third against real quality teams like Shaftesbury and Serpentine puts our achievement into perspective - and d'you know what? The girls did good. Furthermore, to book-end the season with record numbers of Woodettes is a real achievement and I'm so proud of the girls for coming good and winning our last match. We know that we have it in us to win this and I am determined that we will".

Men's A team

The league title being a lost cause due to Highgate's big lead, team manager Terry McCarthy opted not to put further pressure on his fast youngsters at this extremely busy point in the winter season by calling them in from their various university locations. Instead, the opportunity was there for B team regulars to claim one of those prestigious A team spots.

The already crowded calendar, now choc-a-block due to the rescheduling of the South of England CC to next weekend, took its toll on race numbers, and the men's field comprised a 'mere' 288 finishers. Those who ran took advantage with unusually high placings. The venue must have been the driest spot in the UK with many opting for 6 mm spikes rather than the 15s of recent weeks, and track and road runners' eyes lit up with delight as they arrived. To compensate, the course was longer than usually at around 9.2K, with only one man, winner Neilson Hall, breaking 30 minutes.

Bearing in mind that Martyn Cryer had failed to make the scoring 12 in race 4, his 12th place here was a return to more typical form and gave him team flag-bearer status on the day, though he still has significant room for improvement. Bertie Powell notched up his 48th successive Met League appearance and, remarkably, his 46th consecutive placing in our scoring 12 - every race in over 9 years! 9 seconds down on Powell was Tom Beedell with another solid run in 19th before unfortunately disappearing on a skiing trip for our next 2 races. Angus Holford, finally released from Essex University CC team manager duties to run his first Met of the season, revised his best-ever league position from 23rd to 21st, and to finish within 9" of Beedell and 18" of Powell was eye-catching. Taking the scalp of Harold Wyber (24th, 9" back) was another feather in his cap.

In 39th, Darren Southcott had made the very wise decision to train hard through this race as he had raced the boggy BUCS champs the week before and wants to do well in the Southern next week, so his heavy-legged 39th was totally acceptable and explicable. Louis Clark (43) made his third scoring 12 of this, his debut, season, and it will be interesting to see next winter whether he can make the leap into the low 30s and possibly 20s. Both Clark and M40 Gareth Cavell are now coached by Bertie Powell, and Cavell made his first scoring 12 of the season with a very tidy 65th, one minute down on Clark. Cavell only caught Tony Russell (69) entering the last field, but Russell was suffering, on the fast going, from a lack of quick training. With only six months' as a runner behind him, he will be putting that right in the coming months!

10th scorer was Tim Ballard, whose 77th, 30" behind Russell, left him a little underwhelmed but was no disaster. M40 Matt Molloy (84) pitched in his first Met of the season as he builds up towards another ironman summer and got to within 10" of Ballard. And the final spot in the scoring 12 was proudly - rightly so - occupied by Tony Pamphilon in 87th. Pamphilon was 165th in Race 1 this season and has steadily improved since then, no mean feat for a 54 year old! He also took the honours of first M50 on the day.

Our 12 in 87 compared with Highgate's 12 in 42 and Serpentine's 12 in 53, and the points went: Highgate 1233, Serpentine 1054, WGEL 1006. So even with our unusually weakened team we were within touching distance of Serps and well ahead of fourth-placed London Heathside. Highgate were left league champions by a very clear margin.

Team Manager Terry McCarthy was quick to congratulate Highgate, who took the league title for the first time since the league was established in 1966-67, "Highgate were brilliant. They would almost have been unstoppable even if we'd been at our best this season. But this has also been a transitional season for us, losing some hardened cross country men for a variety of reasons and with many of our younger athletes away at university."

Nonetheless he underlined the club's outstanding record in this competition, "This makes it 12 years in a row that we've not finished outside the top 2: 8 titles and 4 runners-up spots - this has been a legendary Met League generation!"

At the presentation ceremony, League Secretary Gavin Collett kindly referred to our team's contribution in recent years and to the excellent quality of this season's title race, and it is pleasing to be able to say that there is a great deal of mutual respect and good feeling between our two well-established clubs, both over 100 years old.

Women's B team

One could almost imagine non-blonde V35 Kat Gundersen (17) had deliberately slowed up so as not to break the fair-headed continuity of this winning team, so rare is it for the talented Gundo not to be in the scoring six. But the B Team presence of the day's fastest V35, who landed only 2" behind Stewart told more about the quality in front than any lack on her part. Fellow Scandy senior Rachel Lund (34), whose season has thus far been outstanding, had a different story to tell however, after weeks of commuting to the Channel Islands had taken their inevitable toll on her training. Behind Lund by 1'11" was V45 Bernadine Pritchett (59) a welcome returnee for the final fixture of the Season after struggling for much of it with fitness and form. Fourth home, V45 Alex Wardle (76) ran her best race in this League and was very pleased to be ahead of rival V45 Jenny Thomas (79) by 27". Thomas, focused more on a different kind of energy efficiency in recent weeks, as work has dominated her agenda, nonetheless congratulated Wardle whose newly gifted shoe horn had already provided enough satisfaction to Thomas (and hilarity to the team) to soften the blow. Closing for the team U20 Kate Stockings (85), 4th in her age group on the day, just missed out on a third cash prize after a consistent season. Brave Kav Solder (101), after a mixed season spent recovering from injury closed for the Woodettes.

The Woodettes B Team closed third on the day and 8th in Division 2, led by Serpentine and Ealing Southall, Middlesex.

The Vets closed 5th on the day and were joint third in the League with Ealing, Southall and Middlesex behind Heathside and winners Serpentine - who they were pleased to congratulate as first winners of the brand new (and very fine) Woodford-donated Vets trophy.

Special thanks go to Ed 'no mess' Messer for outstanding clipboard action in the field.

Men's B team

We went into this race in 8th place in Division 1 with a huge cushion between us and the relegation zone, but with the weakness of our squad it was not obvious that we would survive the day. Manager McCarthy had heard that drop candidates Ealing & Southall were weak again, but that still left the potentially dangerous Serpentine B. Could they mount a late assault and shove us down?

Our B team got off the mark in 88th place with Adam Frith, who was 149th in race 1 at Claybury and showed that he has made substantial progress since then. But by that point, Serpentine already had 4 B team men home. In 96th, M55 Dave Cox looked a little under-par, and he would not normally expect to lose 30" to Tony Pamphilon, but he was still 2nd M50 and 30" ahead of Garden City's M55 Dave Desborough, who is always a useful scalp. 26" down on Cox was Joe Everitt in 18, improving on his 141 at Perivale. Also in his debut season for us, Everitt will be looking to try to start next winter season in the top 100.

We had to wait around two minutes for our 4th B man, Neil Millington in 161 which was a very sound run. But by that time Serpentine had long since closed their 12th B team man, in 127th! Nonetheless at least we had a full complement out there battling away - we began with 26 men but lost Paul Stockings to a calf strain on lap 1. So next man in was M50 Alun Evans in 168, well up on his 231 at Perivale.

M45 Martin Mack is always sly enough to take advantage of the weakness of a Met League Race 5 - he was 174th at Perivale last season. And he did it again, improving from 249 at Perivale last month to 193 here. Mack took around half a minute out of Richard Hogg, who notched a useful 204, just getting the better of Andy Smith (208) by 9 seconds and 4 places. Massive credit to Smith, who will always try to make the long journey up from his Sussex home and is usually praying that rail services won't let him down. There was then a big time gap but not many runners before M55 Alistair Holford appeared in 216th, almost two minutes down on Mack. It seems like Mack's marathon training is now paying off.

M50 Tom Spanyol had what looked like a very good run to be only a minute down on Holford in 236. With some unusually big gaps in the field, another marathon trainee M55 Stuart Phillips was next in having run well for 250. And Michael Murphy took one for the team by forcing his body around the over-distance course against its better judgement for 261 - well done Michael! While that was our 12 B men in, it still left M60 Trevor Powell in 280 as our backup, just in case another niggle took its toll on the men above him.

When the league computer was done processing the results, Serpentine's last-ditch effort proved not enough and, although they beat us by 300 on the day, our squads earlier in the season had been powerful enough to see us breathe a sigh of relief as we survived to enjoy another season in the top flight.

Final relegation zone positions: 8, WGEL B 2097; 9, Serpentine B 1971; 10, Ealing & Southall 1881.

Next season will see the arrival of our neighbours and track-and-field sparring partners Newham and Essex Beagles in Division 1 for the first time after they gained last day promotion from Division 2 along with divisional champions Victoria Park. The task will be to send them straight back down again!

A relieved manager McCarthy said, "Most of today's B team are usually C team, if that! So it shows how useful having a large, dependable squad can be. It is really quite admirable for any club to have a B team survive in the hothouse environment of Met League Division 1. But we have lived to fight another day, and the guys today now know what it's like to be a B teamer! I've told the guys to start training for next season."

The Howard Williams Trophy, awarded to the club whose combined men and women's positions are best, went to Serpentine by a margin of one point for finishing 1st (women) and 3rd (men). This compared to our 3rd and 2nd and Highgate's 4th and 1st.

In the individual rankings, we failed to place any athletes in the prize money positions, 1-7. But we had 6 men in the top 25 (Cryer 8, Powell 10, Beedell 14, Kevin Murphy 20, Southcott 23, Wyber 24) and 4 in the top 25 of the women's ranking (Stewart 10, Gundersen 11, Linda Jackson 14, Lund 16).

In the final Birmingham CC League, Ed Shepherd finished 7th and thus won the overall points competition for those who had completed all four races this season.