Stubbington Green Runners & AC

by Mike Harper

Another excellent performance saw us take 2nd place and ensure with one meeting still to come that we will be competing at this level again next season. There were three new Club Records from Mike, Dave and a comprehensive victory in the 4 x 400m from Dan, Zippy, Jamille and Mike. We had 13 athletes and a fair number of helpers here at our home fixture. Busiest, as is often the case, were Mike and Dave. Both have competed for us in each of our five seasons in Senior T & F. It is great to se them still improving in some events, despite my requests to cover a few extra races than is ideal for p.b's.

Mike spent the first few hours heading towards a new p.b and Club Record in the pole vault. In between and just after there were sharp performances on the track, high jump and now discus where he is still two metres behind his dad's best! In the triple jump, Dave pushed his own Club Record some way further and was close to his p.b in the long jump. There were several p.b's, with two from Tor. In the triple jump,Tor just overtook Stew to be our fourth furthest, and impressively won the steeplechase in 10 minutes 50 seconds. We also won the B string chase with Ray producing a p.b, which was only 15 seconds from getting past Gordon and onto the Club record sheet. Ray is already there in the Javelin, and a throw of 29 metres usually would win the B string. Chris having his first sprint for the club was unlucky to come up against some strong sprinters and 26.5 seconds will usually be rewarded with more points. The other p.b came from Dan in the 100m, which due to my planning or lack of it, didn't help Dan with the 800m straight after. Dan did team up very successfully with Jamille in the relays, where we picked up a 1st and a 2nd . Jamille had earlier won the B 400m in the only graded performance of the day. We were very dominant in the middle and long distances track events, picking up lots of maximum points. Mark and Andy obliged as usual in the 5000m, Mark and Zippy again in the 1500m. Zippy had earlier won the 800m in 2.03.3 seconds, only one tenth off his club record!

In the throws, we have probably never had such good throws for such little reward. Newquay had superb throwers, both over 44 metres in the Hammer and one over 50m in the Javelin, coupled with an Oxford guy over 12m in the Shot and 38m in the Discus and you can see why despite excellent efforts from Stew we got little reward. Stew did improve his Stub p.b in the Discus to nudge closer to Dave Smith's club record and he was very close to his own club record in all three of the other throws. With decent B string support from Andy, Tony, Ray and Mike we can expect more points next time in the throws.

A final mention for both relays, the 4 x 100m team made it onto our Club Records sheet just with the fifth fastest time (Dave appears in all 5 squads!). The 4 x 400m team took about a second from the old record, with Mike in all 5 squads! In the 4 x 4 we lapped at least one team and won by over 200 metres!

Again we must thank our helpers who double up as officials at these meetings. A massive thank you to our Chairman, Mike Clarke, who was one of only two timekeepers there and without his attendance we would not have been able to hold the meeting. I'm not too sure who helped here as we had quite a few family members watching as well which was great to encourage our athletes along. I know Brian (Dave's granddad) covered the pole vault because it took around 2 hours. Probably Chris and Murray helped on the hammer which was our other event.

400mH	Mike Harper	70.9s	A	4 th
400mH	Ray Gunner	72.5s	B	4 th
100m	Mike Williams	11.7s	A	2 nd
100m	Dan Dell	12.6s	B	3 rd	PB
800m	Zippy Grice	2.03.3s	A	1 st
800m	Dan Dell	2.15.4s	B	3 rd
5000m	Mark le Gassick	16.19.8s	A	1 st
5000m	Andy Simpson	17.30.9s	B	1 st
400m	Mike Williams	51.8s	A	1 st
400m	Jamille Hogg	54.2s	B	1 st			Grade 3
110mH	Dave Marrott	22.1s	A	3 rd
110mH	Mike Harper	22.2s	B	4 th
200m	Dave Marrott	25.7s	A	3 rd
200m	Chris Munro	26.5s	B	4 th	PB
1500m	Zippy Grice	4.18.6s	A	1 st
1500m	Mark le Gassick	4.29.4s	B	1 st
4x100m	DD/DM/JH/MW	48.2s		2 nd
4x400m	DD/ZG/JH/MW	3.40.9s		1 st		CLUB RECORD
3000s/c	Tor Duffin	10.50.6s	A	1 st	PB
3000s/c	Ray Gunner	11.34.9s	B	1 st	PB
Long jump	Dave Marrott	5.66s	A	3 rd
Long jump	Tor Duffin	4.95m	B	3 rd
High Jump	Mike Williams	1.65m	A	3 rd
High Jump	Mark le Gassick	1.50m	B	4 th
Pole Vault	Mike Williams	2.70m	A	2 nd	PB	CLUB RECORD
Pole Vault	Mike Harper	1.10m	B	3 rd
Triple Jump	Dave Marrott	11.72m	A	2 nd	PB	CLUB RECORD
Triple Jump	Tor Duffin	10.89m	B	2 nd	PB
Hammer	Stew Shaw	30.19m	A	3 rd
Hammer	Andy Simpson	15.42m	B	4 th
Javelin	Stew Shaw	38.89m	A	3 rd
Javelin	Ray Gunner	29.18m	B	3 rd
Shot	Stew Shaw	9.11m	A	4 th
Shot	Tony Allen	6.72m	B	4 th
Discus	Stew Shaw	26.82m	A	4 th
Discus	Mike Williams	22.20m	B	3 rd

The final fixture is at the Sports space Athletic track, Jarman Park , Hemel Hempstead on 30th July. If you can run, throw or help please phone me on 02392 588220. There we face Milton Keynes , Wimborne/Poole and Team Kennet. All three teams are currently below us, so let's try and keep it like that! I have booked a minibus to leave Stubbington at 9.00, we should, pub stop included, return 12 hours later.