News reports - February 2025

8th February 2025: 30 club runners at Towneley Park for Mid Lancs XC

With many disappointed by the cancellation of the Blackpool Mid Lancs XC fixture last month, due to weather conditions, a trip along the M65 corridor to Burnley's Towneley Park was an attractive option on Saturday. 30 Southport Waterloo runners attended, included 13 seniors despite the popular and club Grand Prix Mad Dog 10K in Southport on the following day. The course at Towneley Park was in great condition. OK, there was the odd waterlogged patch, but in general the ground was firm and made for fast times. I had expected a powdering of white on the hills but no. The weather was kind; cold but Friday's biting easterly wind was no longer a feature and it stayed dry.all day.

Losing a fixture and not being able to find a replacement date or venue meant that the League would be decided this year on the basis of the three best scores. That will have influenced participation levels at Burnley, numbers today being below what we normally expect here. Nonetheless, there was some excellent racing and several pleasing club results. Our Under 11 Boys, Under 13 Girls, Under 13 Boys, Senior Women and Senior Men all finished teams and we had 9 top 10 individual finishes; Under 11 Thomas Delamere, Under 13 Boys Oliver Kimball and George Hawthorn, Under 15s Lauren Silcox and Eddy Clark, Under 17s Sydney Monahan Clarkson and Amelie Scott, Under 20 Emily Dean and Senior Ben Johnson

In the Under 11 Girls' race, Amelie Roberts and Emma Brighton ran for their club. Amelie finished 20th of 44 girls in 8:33 for the 2km 2-lap course with Emma 30th in 9:23.

Thomas Delamere, Matthew Ndjambula and Harvey Lloyd were our Under 11 Boys. Running the same course as the Girls, Thomas was 9th in 7:10, Matthew 14th in 7:19 and Harvey 42 of 62 in 8:15. The boys were 6th team on the day, good enough to hold on to 2nd place overall.

Four of our Under 13 Girls turned out at Burnley for their slightly longer 2.7 km small and medium lap course. Caitlin Webster was first home in a Southport Waterloo vest, 27th of 43 girls, in 11:07. Amelia Salkeld was 38th in 11:40, Phoebe Broadhurst finished in 11:54 and Gabriella Otty in 12:29, giving them an 8th place team finish.

Our Under 13 Boys were Oliver Kimball, George Hawthorn and James Silcox. Oliver had a great run to finish 6th in 10:15 for the 3.2kms full lap course, George was 9th in 10:21 and James 24th of 33 finishers in 11:30. That gave the boys a 3rd place team finish which I think moves them to 2nd in the team league overall.

Lauren Silcox was our only Under 15 Girl. She ran a great race to finish 2nd in 10:10 for her full lap 3.2kms. Lauren is 2nd in the individual league standings overall with just one fixture to come.

Our Under 15 Boys were Eddy Clark and Evan Thomas. Eddy took full advantage of today's running opportunity to finish 1st fot his club and 2nd of 28 boys in 12:34 for the 4kms. Evan was 11th in 13:28 but there was no team finish today so the medals will be decided at the final Skelmersdale fixture in March. A strong team turnout then should secure team medals.

The Under 17 Women's race was won by Sydney Monahan Clarkson in 14:30 for the 4kms. Amelie Scott was 6th in 15:56. In this race, Sydney beat all 4 girls currently shown (as I write this) in the individual rankings, Sydney not being shown because of a name variation for the Sefton Park result. When that is corrected, I believe Sydney will be ranked 2nd overall and a good medal prospect this year.

Southport Waterloo had no runners in the Under 17 Men's race.

Under 20 Woman Emily Dean ran in the Senior Women's race counting in both categories. She was 2nd Under 20 Woman in 19:11 for her 5.8kms. Emily didn't run Sefton Park so will need to run Skelmersdale to get into the Mid Lancs ranking.

Andrea Scarborough and Michelle Spencer joined Emily in the Senior Women's race. Emily placed 9th Senior Woman with Andrea 29th in 23:20 and Michelle 65th in 25:35. An 11th place team finish might just raise them off the bottom of Div'1 but a strong result at Skelmersdale will be needed to avoid relegation.

10 of our Senior Men made the trip to Towneley Park, led home by Ben Johnson, 6th today in 31:14 after finishing 18th here last year in 35:21. The course was faster today but a satisfying result nonetheless! Alex Vernon was next in, 29th in 33:47, then David Hamilton, 42nd in 34:35, March Singer, 43rd in 34:53, John Delamere, 49th in 35:16, and final team counter Steve Wilkinson, 62st in 36:14. Our other finishers were John Sprackland, 38:57, Peter Roome, 39:03, Andy McKenzie, 43:28, and Michael Cunningham, 43:46. David Hamilton was 1st MV55 and Andy McKenzie 3rd MV65 so some good vet results again. Overall, our seniors were 3rd team so will stay in 2nd place overall for the season so far. They won MV40 and MV50 teams and were 2nd MV60 team so remain very much the vet team to beat and on track to win all the Vet divisions. David Hamilton in lying 2nd MV40 and joint 1st MV50 in the individual standings.

Mid Lancs Results

2nd February 2025: Josh Tan improves 60m club record.

Also on Sunday, we had several athletes at the latest Sale Indoor Meeting in Sportcity, producing three or four new PBs and an improved club record for Josh Tan. Josh was at the Northern Indoor Champs in Sheffield in January running 7.21 in his 60m heat. A 3rd place qualified him for the semi where he was 4th in 7.20, both times new Under 20 club records. Nonetheless, he knew he could run a faster time and came along to Manchester on Sunday to see what he could do. He was seeded in the first and fastest 60m heat and crossed the line first in 7.14, a whopping 6 hundredths of a second faster than in Sheffield. Sale Harriers allow the 60m runners to have a second race at the end of the meeting and Josh took advantage of that to run 7.16, so clearly in great shape. The new Under 20 club record of 7.14 is also the fastest 60m time run by any Southport Waterloo runner, the previous 'Best Known' time was 7.15 held jointly by Under 17s James Armstrong in 2009 and Harry Flanagan in 2016.

Also competing in Sportcity, Under 15 Lucas Sinnott ran 8.21 to equal his PB and Chris Burgess ran a Season's Best 7.95 for 60m before 26.26 in the 1-lap 200m. Under 17 Harvey Thompson ran a PB 600m in 1:32.10 and Mattew Nuttall put the shot 9m 08, a Season's Best.

Results

2nd February 2025: Senior runners second in L & D XC Champs

On Sunday, the Liverpool & District Cross Country Union had their annual Championships at Clark's Gardens in Liverpool, the traditional venue for this event. A strong Southport Waterloo team in this senior championship could get amongst the medals but, although we had 8 men turn out, our top three runners from Sefton Park last November weren't amongst the finishers. Fortunately, George Ingram and Mark Wynne led our contingent home with fine runs in 25 minutes for the 5.2 mile course. George was 9th of the 121 finishers in 25:23 with Mark close on his heels, 10th in 25:30.. Other team finishers were Mark Singer, 20th in 26:45, Steve Wilkinson, 35th in 28:00, David Wright, 40th in 28:49 and Lewis Rooney, 54th in 29:48. On a day when Liverpool Harriers failed to finish a team, Southport Waterloo were 2nd with 168 points behind St Helens Sutton, winning with 141. Wirral were 3rd with 176 points.

Our other finishers were John Sprackland, 29:55, and Michael Cunningham, 33:48.

Liverpool Harriers may not have had a team but they finished 1st and 2nd individuals with Matthew Leahy coming home in 22:30 and Jon-Jo Doherty 22:42.

Rachel Jacks was our only female runner and she finished a very creditable 6th lady, 1st LV35, in 30:34.

We hope for a good strong team at Burnley on Saturday to maintain our challenge in the Mid Lancs XC League.

Results

2nd February 2025: 800m Bronze for Lewis McIlroy at Northern Junior Indoor Champs (by Graham Boreham)

The Northern U13/15 Indoor Championships took place at EIS in Sheffield in their usual slot on the first Sunday in February, with 7 Southport Waterloo U15 athletes – 5 girls and 2 boys making their way across the Pennines to compete. Over the course of the day there were some great performances, the highlight coming from Lewis McIlroy in the U15 boys’ 800, who ran a huge PB to pick up the bronze medal in his first Northern champs.

Phoebe Mangan was the first of our athletes to compete, in the first event of the day, the 200m. There were so many entries for this that they had to run 9 heats, with the top 2 from each heat progressing to the semi finals early in the afternoon. Phoebe was in heat 6 and just missed out on qualification, finishing 3rd in 29.79.

The next event of interest was the 800, which featured James McGrory and Lewis McIlroy. U15’s are no longer allowed to run a heat and final in the same day over any distance from 800 upwards, so the medal places would be decided by time trials. That said, unlike U13 time trials where the fastest athletes all run together, the U15’s were mixed up randomly, like they would be if they were running heats followed by a final. Lewis ran in race 1 which contained the fastest athlete on paper and as such it was a very quick race. After 1 lap he was back in 4th, but had moved up to 3rd after 2 laps and 2nd after 3, then pushing the final lap as hard as possible. At 50 to go the tiredness really hit and he dropped back to 3rd in the final straight, but little surprise as he crossed the line in 2:15.10, his first sub 2:20 run taking 7.1 seconds off his PB from last year.

Jimmy was 1 of just 4 in race 2, but the pace was still very quick, albeit not quite as quick as the first one. For most of the race he was right on the shoulder of the top 2, but a slightly misjudged move down the back straight on the final lap saw him tripped up at the start of the final bend. He stayed on his feet and recovered very quickly though, a very strong kick in the final 50 taking him into 2nd, less than 2 tenths behind the winner. His time was 2:16.04, within a second of his PB and overall across the 2 races gave him 5th spot, while Lewis had managed to hold onto 3rd overall, the winner of race 2 running 2:15.90.

Going on at the same time was the Long Jump, featuring Amelia Tyrer and Charlotte Tyrer. Again, there was a huge entry for this with 2 pools run at the same time, both containing 16 athletes. The twins were in pool B and both jumped PB’s, Amelia’s 4.39m adding 7cm and Charlotte’s 4.33m adding 6cm. Position wise, Amelia was 3rd in pool B and 10th overall with Charlotte 4th in pool B and 13th overall. Both then went on to race in the 60 Hurdles; there were 4 heats here with tough qualification of winner from each plus 4 fastest non-automatic spots. Charlotte was in heat 1 and finished 5th in 10.29, a good time for her first time competing in indoor hurdles while Amelia was in heat 2, finishing 6th in 10.72, an improvement of 1.25 seconds on her time from the same race 12 months ago.

Joining the twins in the Hurdles was Alice Dobson. She went in heat 3 and was the quickest of the 3, clocking 10.23 to finish 3rd, taking 4 tenths off the mark she set at Sportcity in December. Before that she also raced in the flat 60, another U15 girls’ event with a huge entry stretching across 6 heats with the top 3 from each plus 6 fastest non-automatic progressing to the semi finals. Again in heat 3, she finished 5th in a very creditable 8.85 for her first flat 60 race. Completing the afternoon, she and twin sister Eliza Dobson both competed in the Shot. Alice finished 7th of 14 girls with a best of 7.39m, a very good effort for her first go with the 3kg weight, while Eliza finished 12th, her best of 6.47m adding 23cm to her best from Sportcity in December.

Well done to all who competed at Sheffield today. Indoors wise (not including the England age group champs next weekend) there’s 2 more open meetings at Sportcity, on Sunday’s 16th February and 9th March, after which it’s on to the outdoor season once more.

Results