Darren Wall wins the 200m

Norwich was an important step in that process. Fifth from eight teams was an average overall result, but some of the performances from the team were far from middle of the road.

Super Gavin Hodgson in the 400m Hurdles

Gavin Hodgson was the superstar of the day. Warming up with two victories in the 'B' string 400m Hurdles and 400m flat, before running a storming first leg of the 4x400m relay to hand over in front.

There were also victories for British League debutant Anthony Llewelyn in the 'A' string Javelin, Darryn Campbell with a real return to form in the 'A' string 400m and Andy Bargh (who only volunteered himself to do it over dinner the night before) in the 'B' string 110m Hurdles. Darren Wall flew round the 'A' string 200m in lane 8 to victory in 22.5 seconds.

4x100m: Bourne to Tom Berry

What was most pleasing from the day was the way the standard of competition brought the best out of some of the youngsters. Ben Richardson sliced 0.6 seconds off of his personal best to post a time of 15.5 second for third in the 'A' string 110m Hurdles. Also John Beattie ran a PB in the 5000m and Alex Wall-Clarke ran with maturity in the 800m and 1500m.

4x100m: Berry to Darren Wall

In other events there were some good second places for Iain Robertson (returning to his home town) in the 3000m steeplechase and also Dan Turner, runner up only on count-back, in the high jump.
Anthony Llewelyn with a 50m throw

There were also some great performances from new athletes Russell Osborn and Andy Waters. Russell was competitive in both the 'A' string 800m, 1500m and 4 x 400m relay and Andy picked up good points in the 'A' string discus and shot.

The other athletes did a really good job of making sure the performances mentioned didn't go to waste. Malcolm Bourne threw a PB to come 3rd in the 'B' string Javelin and Tom Berry ran well for 4th in the 'B' string 200m. Ben Davis came away with 4th in the 'B' string high jump and I was pleased to make the cut with my best throw for over a year (36m47) in the discus.

Andy Walters in the hammer

The relays provided a good points hall with 2nd in the 4 x 100m (B Richardson/Bourne/Berry/Wall) and 3rd in the 4 x 40-0m (Hodgson/Bargh/Osborn/Campbell) rounding off a day of solid performances by the whole team.

Me in the hammer - nice shot Darryn! (Thank you Adam)

In conclusion, we can be reasonably pleased with this result, with a relatively young and below-strength team we have managed to mix it with the other teams. It also provides cause for optimism as if we can get out something resembling a full strength team for the next match we stand a good chance of finishing in the top 2.

4x400m Andy Bargh takes the baton

There were many events that provided plenty of room for improvement. The jumping events are always going to be a case of 'Damage Limitation', but we only picked up 11 points from an available 84 in the long jump, triple jump and pole vault (last in all 3 would have been 15 points!). We were shy of

4x400m Russell Osborn on the third leg (above) and Darryn Campbell brings it home (below).

Hopefully, four weeks time in Derby (a slightly nicer commute) we can add some strength to the team, improve on fifth and start climbing up the table. Thanks to everybody who made the trip to Norwich, it was a long way, but it was definitely worth it.

Adam Richardson (& Terese Swain)
Team Solent A Team Managers