Track Roundup 2007

Leagues Summary:

British Athletics League Last year the British Men found themselves in the unenviable position of having to compete in the BAL qualifier to maintain their British league status but there was no such worry this year as they comfortably held off Stoke in the final match to finish safely sixth in the table for the National 3 division, no doubt helped by their second place finish in their home match.  Top points scorer in this league was Ben Richardson with 120 points, almost 40 clear of his closest rival and over 10% of the final club total though even he admits that it is easier to tot up the points with multiple short sprint events.  Ben, Dan Turner, Andy Morgan-Lee, Nick Illiffe & the 4x100m Relay team all achieved victories in the A String whilst Sam Turner matched the achievement in the B String.

UK Women's League Two forth place finishes and a fifth place finish ensured the UK women's team finished 4th in the league, bettering their 5th place finish of last year.  The July match saw a fixture clash with the Southern women's league depleting the strength of the team whilst the June fixture saw the two leagues happening on consecutive days, Catriona Witcombe, Sasha Mucci, Karla Drew, Becky Tune, Rachel Rogers, Sarah Ellis, Rachael Lewington, Carol Dawkins & Catherine Davies competing on both days! The top points scorer was Vicki Foster amassing 49 points in the long throws and was the only athlete to score over 15 points in all three matches.  Debbie Callaway & Katy Watts achieved victories in the A String whilst Vicki, Grace Clements and Becky Gough achieved the same in the B String.

Southern Men's League

In what can only be described as a Yo-Yo year for the Southern Men's League in Division 3W and not to be accused of doing things by halfs they won two of their five matches but came dead last at the other three.  The result was a nail biting final fixture at Basingstoke where they achieved their second victory through a mixture of team work and athletics pulling themselves away from the drop zone at the bottom of the league table.

The top points scorer was by far Maurice Hicks through superior ability in the long throws with 55 points, mention should be given to David Cousins however who finished second in the table with 37 points, attending all 5 matches.  Maurice again came out top of the 'First Places' competition with 8 victories.  Chris Bull, Jon Slade, Lewis Towner-White & Ross Langford all totted up 4 victories each and the 4x100m relay team won four out of the five matches.

Southern Women's League Winning five out their six matches Team Southampton finished top of the Southern Women's league by just seven points, narrowly edging out close rivals Bedford. Things didn't look quite so bright early on in the final match as a steady stream of phone calls revealed that Bedford were only dropping one or two points, fortunately though our women also performed strongly bringing in mostly first places to see us through with a well deserved top of the table finish. The Southern Women's league is unique in that table position is determined by individual points rather than match points meaning that every performance really does count, as we showed in many B string pole vault competitions(!) The top points scorer in this league was unsurprisingly Becky Tune competing in no less than six different disciplines in her five matches, almost gaining maximum points in the Pole Vault (24 out of a possible 25). Rachael Lewington however did manage to win 5 out of 5 of her 400m races posting some fast times, though her PB would come in the more competitve BAL Cup Semi Final. Nobody competed in all six matches due to the clash with the UK Women's fixture in June and Team Southampton are not promoted as they already have a team in the higher division.

National Young Athletes League The young athletes enjoyed their most successful season in almost a decade as they finished second in the NYAL Division 1 to win promotion to the premier division next season.  In years past the team has been very strong in some areas but let down in others but in 2007 they were finally operating at full strength. Team Southampton boys' and girls' talents shone through to win 4 out of their 5 fixtures and come second in the remaining fixture. Fielding near full teams and strong individual performances ensured a strong club showing with Louis Gates, Jenny Beckingham, Ben Lewis, Georgie Pick, Bradley Awuah-Peasah, Richard Humby, Lucy Ferris, Freya Jones & Simon Ninnim all achieving Athlete of the Match status. Scott Legg & Jamie Knapp topped the Boys 'top points scorers' table with 49 & 48 respectively achieved by competing in all 5 matches showing impressive individual diversity with Jamie competing in 8 different events and Scott in 6.  Top of the Girls Scorers was SEAA U15 bronze medallist Freya Jones with 49, matching Scott's total, though Freya achieved the majority of her points by convincingly winning both the Javelin and Shot in all 5 matches.  Besides Freya only Louise Webb managed victory in the same event in all 5 matches, the 300m H, impressive given her longer distance aspirations. The youngsters were no doubt buoyed by having 3 home matches this year, next year they'll be facing clubs such as Blackheath, Windsor, Shaftesbury Barnett & Bedford in locations much further afield!

Wessex League The Wessex league is a much more light hearted affair compared to the National Young Athletes league, comprised entirely of local clubs there is no prospects of promotion as there's only one league so the club is competing solely for pride.  We finished a creditable equal fourth in the final league standings, winning one and coming second in another of the three fixtures.  Interestingly the three clubs who beat us in the Cup final on the Isle of Wight were the three who beat us in the league. There isn't as much overlap as you would expect between the NYAL and Wessex leagues with athletes usually competing in either one or the other showing a strength in depth for our juniors which our seniors can only look at in envy.  Top male points scorer was David Fisher with 45 points in the unusual combination of middle distance / long throws.  Anna Stevens showed club commitment as she followed up a 3rd place finish in the female NYAL points table by winning the female Wessex League points table, clean sweeping both the shot and discus in all three matches in the process.  Special mention should also be given to Lucy Ferris who had a clean sweep in both the 70m Hurdles and High Jump.

Club Records: 2007 saw the establishment of 5 new club records, two of which in new events. Ben Richardson finally achieved his goal of erasing Lee Tindal from the 100m H records with a legal 14.60 at the U23 championships, he has now set his sights on Kris Akabusi's manually timed 14.6. Laura Brenton, also running at the U23 championships, broke her own mark by almost 24 seconds in the 5000m and Charlotte Heron kept very quiet about jumping 1.72m, twice, for a high jump record earlier this year in Kansas, USA. Louise Webb stamped her authority on the newly introduced Women's steeplechase event with records in both the 2000m and 3000m Steeplechase, the 2000m time proving to be a UK U20 record and was achieved running in Ostrava, CZE at the IAAF World Youth Championships.

Open Meetings:

Team Southampton hosted 4 evening open meetings in 2007, more than usual and the events were well received by the younger club athletes.  The open meetings would have no doubt been more enjoyable if it wasn't raining and horrible weather for three of them, a fact that so annoyed the organisers that by the final meeting the 100m was being ran the wrong way down the track!

Club Awards: Each year the club makes awards to its members who have either made an outstanding contribution to the club or have achieved an outstanding level of performance.  This year the format of the awards has been shaken up a bit... now it is up to members to nominate who they believe is deserving of such an award, forms and more information is available in the club portakabin or online (here).  The deadline is the 17th September 2007 and the awards will take place at the AGM around October.

I apologise for any errors and omissions, I have attempted to keep this round-up as factual as possible to avoid bias - any errors or criticism then mail teamsouthampton@hotmail.com.

Also feel free to mail if you want to add to this 2007 summary.