Final Met League: Perivale: Senior Men/Women
After a highly challenging season in the London City Runner Metropolitan CC League, we extended our dominance as the leading men's team by taking the Division 1 title for the third consecutive season. Our men's B team were clear winners of Division 2 and thus rejoin our A team in Division 1 next winter. Our women finished the season in 4th place.
When the gun went - at least 5 minutes early, it should be said - one of our key men, the talented but notoriously last-minute Martyn Cryer, had still not arrived. When he finally turned up, he joined the race on lap 2, ran two laps, and continued for 2 more as he converted the race into a training run for next week's English National champs.
Men's A team
The race was dominated by Smith of Thames Valley Harriers, followed by Abdi of Newham and Aadan, also of TVH. For much of the race, our Daniel Agustus (6) and Bertie Powell (7) had a terrific intra-club tussle for 4th and 5th place which seemed to leave both out on their feet with half a mile to go, when Torry of Serpentine and Trapmore of Shaftesbury took advantage to go past. Powell had gone into the race with a cough and ultimately succumbed to Agustus by 4". Mark Burgess, still on an upwards curve as he returns from a 3-year absence from the sport, was close behind this duo for two laps but a heavy training week took its toll and he slipped back to a disappointed 14th.
Tom Phillips, now looking a very mature athlete, ran another well-judged race to improve from 30th at Trent Park to 21st here. 8" behind in 23rd, there will be a lot more to come from Stephan Wenk next season as he settles into English life and English-style courses. With 5 of our men through in 23, we were holding our own against the "Serpies". And within the next 30 seconds we had more or less sewn the title up, as we packed well with Angus Holford (27), U20 Omar Mansour (32), U20 Gavin Lewis (35), Tomaz Plibersek (37) and M40 Matt Molloy (38). Mansour's run was particularly appreciated as he was suffering from a cold - he and team manager Terry McCarthy went into conference at 11am and both reluctantly agreed that the points he would gain were needed.
Holford's run was an improvement on recent races and, importantly, he felt positive about it afterwards. For Lewis it was a decent stepping stone on the way back to serious fitness, the road relays and the track. Plibersek did not suffer as he had done at Alexander Palace so was a little more content, while Molloy was delighted to get stuck into the heart of the scoring 12 zone and is showing the benefits of his ironman triathlon training.
We waited a little while for our final two A team scorers but without great anxiety. In 64th, Gareth Cavell made the A team for the first time in his first season with us - it was also the first CC the relatively inexperienced M40 has been happy with. And M45 Ray Dzikowski chose us over his first-claim club Ilford and ran a terrific race to close the A team in 69th.
Meanwhile, Serpentine closed 7 in 28, but there was a bit of a gap before their remaining 5 men packed between 44 and 54. When the scores were added they had beaten us by 41 points. In fact, Serpentine won 3 of the 4 races held this season but did relatively poorly in Fixture 2, while we were consistent throughout, closing our 12 within 70 in all 4 races. Early challengers Shaftesbury disappeared almost entirely this time, finishing 10th of the 10 clubs in Division 1. No doubt they are saving their powder for the National.
Teams: 1, Serpentine 1426; 2, WGEL 1385; 3, TVH 1038.
Final League: 1, WGEL 6305; 2, Serpentine 6227; 3, Highgate 994.
Daniel Agustus was presented with the Bert Blackmore Memorial Trophy, first awarded in 1985-86. This is the first time that any club has got its name on the trophy three times in a row (though Thames Valley won multiple titles in the 1960s and 70s).
Manager Terry McCarthy was proud of the manner in which his side took the title again, "Contributions came from all angles. 27 different men were A team scorers and it's this strength in depth that enables us to compete with a club of Serpentine's enormous size." He also emphasised the youthfulness of his squad, "Today, for instance, we had Powell, Burgess, Phillips, Holford, Mansour and Lewis in the top 35. All with us since they were kids and still very young. Previous scorers Cornwell, Mariani, Berg and Southcott also fall into that category."
He also noted Serpentine's important contribution to improving the league's standard, "This type of inter-club rivalry has always been the backbone of British distance running, and it helps bring out the best in individual athletes."
Men's B team
Our B team closed the season in style, winning the Division 2 battle on the day and clinching the title by a huge 700+ point margin. After being "relegated" pre-season when the divisions were restructured, our B men will be back in Division 1 next year. Below us, Newham mounted a last-ditch challenge to secure promotion, but it was too little too late as Mornington Chasers ascend with us to the top tier.
Harold 'Rip Van Winkle' Wyber was again in the vanguard of our B teamers, just 7" behind A team anchor Dzikowski. Not a bad run from the boy Wyber who is threatening to make a great leap forward through his marathon training. Gareth Lloyd, 27th in the first race back at Claybury, made a return after injury and in typical cavalier fashion led the field towards the gap in the first hedge, thereafter drifting back to 88th. Nonetheless a man who will show his worth at the road relays! Uncannily, son Rob (105) and dad Dave Cox (106) were awarded the same time though on this occasion they raced it out with no holds barred, dad setting a hot pace for son to follow until son's youthful finishing sprint ultimately gave him the infinitessimal victory.
14 seconds but 10 places separated Tony Pamphilon (114) and Iain Cumming (124), the former being somewhat happier with his 5 mile race in the Chingford League a week earlier and the latter content after a heavy week's marathon training. Larger than life Yorkshireman CJ Shepherd (145) seems to spend too much time watching HBO box sets and not enough time pounding the pavements - his manager called upon him to deliver fewer TV recommendations and more Met League points! Nonetheless his mighty finishing speed edged him ahead of Steve Dawkins (147), who ran pretty strongly and enjoyed putting some distance between himself and long-term rival John Wallis (156), albeit the latter was suffering from a cold. These are stout Woodford yoemen indeed, heeding the call to arms with cries of "Of course!" and "Wouldn't miss it for the world mate!" History informs us that the same was heard prior to Agincourt.
With "only" 277 finishers this time, positions further down the field looked easier to come by than usual. Alistair Holford (188) took advantage of the unusually firm terrain to blitz perennial shadow Martin Mack (201) by a huge 42" seconds. And Paul Stockings closed the B team 6 places below in 207th. Holford and Stockings, of course, are key members of our coaching staff aiming to bring through future generations of 800/1500 and CC athletes.
Division 2 team: 1, WGEL 'B' 655; 2, Newham 604; 3, London Frontrunners 510.
Division 2 final league: 1, WGEL 'B' 3335; 2, Mornington Chasers 2609; 3, Newham 2550.
The ever-loyal Andy Smith made his usual long trek from Sussex to finish 212nd, 25" down on Stockings but well ahead of Tom Spanyol (234) who always looks to be in grievous agony but nonetheless drew plentiful blood from his sometime nemesis Michael Murphy (242), who was kind enough to suggest his team manager would be highly ranked in any future edition of Nintendo Met League Manager, which would doubtless fly off the shelves...
A mention, too, for Ed Messer, Jim Roche and Stuart Phillips, who DNF'd on the day but showed where their heart is by giving it a go. A sports psychologist is being recruited to attend urgently to all three.
Women
Our team effort this season has tailed off somewhat, but we just about did enough at Perivale to hang onto 4th place in Division 1. Lauren Stewart had a fine run for 7th and both her and W40 Bernie Pritchett (17) achieved their highest league positions of the season. Maggie Powell was back in action after doing some sharpening in 5K Park Runs, and showed improved fitness for a decent 31st place, around a minute down on Pritchett.
The women's field, like the men's, was the smallest of the season with 100 finishers. Kav Solder in 55th just failed to make the top half and Kate Stockings, just prior to launching into her summer steeplechase training, finished 65th.
Congratulations go to a very fine Serpentine team newly dedicating themselves to this competition.
Team: 1, Serpentine 339; 2, Shaftesbury 273....... 6, WGEL 182
Final league: 1, Serpentine 1590; 2, Highgate 1348; 3, Shaftesbury 1283; 4, WGEL 1113; 5, Serpentine 'B' 1111.
The newly inaugurated Howard Williams Trophy (Seniors) based on the accumulated league positions of both men and women went:
1, Serpentine 41; 2= WGEL and Highgate 39; 4, Shaftesbury; 5, Met Police. Congratulations, again, to Serpentine.