Birmingham League Race 2 - Sat 6th December
Weakened Team finish creditable tenth at Abingdon Park
Rugby & Northampton A.C hosted the second race in the Birmingham Cross Country League Division 1 at Abington Park on Saturday. Although the mens squad suffered a lot of absentees through injury and illness they still managed to turn out twelve athletes. With the ‘A’ team performing admirably to finish in 10th place on the day, and remain in 8th place overall.
Leading them home again was Stephen Emery who improved by one place from the first race at Senneleys Park to finish 18th in a time of 34 mins 42 secs over the four laps of the park. Emery 21, now trains with a group from Loughborough University where he studies and has seen the benefits of this by having a superb 2008. Nigel Marley also had an excellent run to record his best ever placing when he finished in 26th spot with 35 mins 2 secs ,which clearly made him the no.2 man for R&N. Working his way through the field after a steady start John Gercs covered the course, which is slightly over 10k, in 36 mins 42 secs to finish 66th and Jamie Sewell chased him hard to claim 69th spot in 36.56. Newcomer to the clubs cross country scene Mark Armstrong also improved from the first meeting and finished strongly in the second half of the race to come home in 94th place with a time of 38 mins 28 secs and completing the scoring six was over 40 veteran Brendan Moen in 38.44 for 98th position.
This performance maintains 8th spot overall in the league from the 16 teams and although the ‘B’ team finished 5th again as in the first race, they have moved up to 4th overall. Leading home that ‘B’ squad was Rob McDougall in 116th place when he recorded 39 mins 53 secs and club captain Vince Carroll completed his 60th Birmingham League race and has made the ‘B’ team on 35 occasions. He finished 127th in 40.42. John Saw came through with a late run for 129th spot with 40.57 and veteran Brian Summers recorded 41.48 to finish 140th. Making his debut in the league was Steve Dixon ( 155th in 43.51 ), who hung on well to hold off Bernie Myers (157th in 44.00 ).
See Bryan Acford’s photographs here
