News reports - March 2024

23rd March 2024: No senior relay team but 3 junior 5K runners at Wythenshawe Park

There was good and bad news for the club at the Northern Athletics 12- and 6-stage Road Relays and Junior 5K Championships on Saturday. Wythenshawe Park, the home of the Sale Sizzler 5, was the venue, starting and finishing on the Wythenshawe Park Track and looping through the adjoining park. The weather was 'cool' with a gusting icy wind and occasional sunny spells but the runners were lucky if they avoided the rain and hailstones.

Three of our junior middle distances runners came along to run the 5K championships. Liam McCormick and Eddy Clark ran in the U15 Boys' race, Liam finishing 14th of 52 in 17:06 and Eddy ran 17:40 for 22nd place, both good performances in what was a good quality field running on a fairly fast course. Emily Dean also featured, running in the Under 17 Women's race, finishing 13th of 20 in 20:35.

The disappoint6ment was that we didn't manage a team in the men's road relay. Although only about an hour away, I'm guessing finding 12 men for a team proved a step too far!

20th March 2024: 164 runners on Birkdale Common for Yr 5 / 6 XC champs

The annual Sefton School Yr 5 / 6 Cross Country Championships run By Southport Waterloo were held on Birkdale Common on Wednesday evening, fortunately after the morning's rain had cleared.  The sun actually came out and the wind dropped away giving us a very pleasant evening for the runners, school teachers and parents.

The event attracted 188 entries, similar to last year at Crosby Coastal Park but around half pre-Covid levels. 164 finishers on Wednesday compares poorly with 457 at Bootle Golf Club on the same date in 2014, where we had so many Year 5 boys we had to run two races for safety and merge the results.  I think that was probably the biggest schools event we have run. We can speculate on why there has been such a decline in numbers but, with high obesity rates, running events like this are not only a sport but vital exercise for youngsters. 

UKA has recently revised upwards the recommended distances for children running cross country and so this year the races were longer; Year 5 boys and girls running approximately 2000m and Year 6 boys and girls 2500m.  That's about 500m longer than previously.

The year 5 Girls' race had 45 finishers. The winner was Skye Hesk of Woodlands Primary in 9:02 with Ivy-Rose Helton, Aintree Davenhill, 2nd in 9:15 and Dora Loxham-Keenan, St Philips, 3rd in 9:18. Freshfield took team honours ahead of St Philips and St Luke's. There were also four girls in this race who train with Southport Waterloo. Erin Honess was 6th in this field, ahead of Emma Brighton, Nell Rice and Demi O'Neill.

The Year 5 Boys' race is traditionally the biggest field in these championships and with 59 finishers it managed to hold on to that statistic. The race was won by Marcus Larkin of Norwood, the Year 4 Boy winner of the School Mile races last year. Marcus ran the 2 kms course in 7:41 ahead of Callum Mannix of St Gregory's in 7:59 and Mason Helton from Aintree Davenhill, 3rd in 8:04. Aintree Davonhill won the team race with St Luke's Formby 2nd and St Gregory's, Lydiate, 3rd. Southport Waterloo runners Thomas Delamere and Sam Coughlan were 7th and 15th.

In the Year 6 Girls' race, Indy Vincent, running for Aintree Davenhill, was a clear winner in 10:56 with Southport Waterloo's Harriet Honess, representing St Nicholas, 2nd in 11:17. But it was the battle for 3rd place that wasn't resolved until the finish line. Southport Waterloo's Esme Wilkinson, St Luke's Crosby, just got the better of Olivia Maszkowski, St John's Crossens, right on the line, both girls being given the same time of 11:32. Farnborough Rd took team honours ahead of St Luke's Formby and St Elizabeth's. .

Southport Waterloo runner Caden Walker, last year's Year 5 School Mile and XC winner, was the Year 6 Boys' winner this year. Caden, from St Luke's, covered the 2.5 kms course in 9:48 ahead of George Hawthorn, St Philips, 2nd in 10:10, with William Hughes from St Gregory's 3rd, very close behind in 10:11. Farnborough Rd again won the team golds medals with St Luke's Formby taking silver and St Elizabeth bronze.

St Luke's CE Formby won the overall Sefton Junior Schools' Cross Country Challenge Cup with Freshfield Primary taking the Sefton Cross Country Cup for smaller schools.

Many thanks to all club volunteers who assisted in puting on this event: Chris Henders, Brian Davey, Jon Singleton, Graham Boreham, Will Rothwell, Gill Gillison, Lesley Scott, Kerynne Robertson, Sue Stewart, Maisie Bird and Steve James.

Results

17th March 2024: 11 senior runners at Liverpool Half Marathon

The popular Liverpool Half Marathon and 10-Miler event from the LIverpool Pier Head down as far as Aigburth took place on Sunday morning. Despite this being a major race on the UK running calendar in the run-up to the London Marathon, it was good to see that both the Half Marathon and the 10 mile races were won by Merseyside runners. Matt Crehan, St Helens Sutton, and Fay Hughes, Wirral, AC where the male and female half marathon winners. Alistair Rutherford, Liverpool Harriers, and Rachael Burns, also a Liverpool Harrier, were the 10 Mile race winners.

The Half Marathon was included in the club's Grand Prix of road races and the 10-miler featured in the Merseyside Grand Prix.

From Southport Waterloo, Susan Cooper ran the 10-Miler, with a chip time of 1:34:2, winning the FV70 category.

In the Half Marathon, Alex Vernon was first home for the club, in what might be his first race over the 13.1 mile distance, running a chip time of 1:20:18. Alex Waddelove ran 1:20:50, David Wright, 1:23:44, Peter Roome 1:40:14, James Brooker, 2:06:39 and Michael Cunningham 2:10:44.

Freur Culshaw was our first female finisher running 1:40:06, with Catherine McElhinney running 1:56:01, Laura Park 2:14:48, Jane Blacklin 2:15:46 and Ruth Sargent 3:03:28.  Fleur 3rd placed FV50. 

Results

16th March 2024: V55 men take gold at British Masters XC Champs

This weekend, with Spring not too far away, we saw the final national cross country championships of the season take place. Well, not quite; as the English National XC Champs, cancelled last month at Weston Park, have been re-scheduled for Saturday 14th September. But the English Schools Cross Country Champs took  place on Saturday at Pontefract Race Course in Yorkshire and British Masters held their championships at Rhug Farm, nr Corwen, Denbighshire in North Wales, also on Saturday.

Our Vet Men have an outstanding reputation for cross country running and have swept the board in the Mid Lancs XC League winning the MV40, MV50 and MV60 titles. In different 10 year spans, Francois Rafferty, David Hamilton and Rob McGrath travelled to the British Masters champs in North Wales and came away with gold medals; MV55 champions for 2024! Over an 8 kms course, Francois was 15th overall, in 31:59, 3rd M55 and so takes the 3rd place category medal. David was 23rd overall, 4th MV55, in 33:02 and Rob McGrath was 57th and 12th MV55 in 36:10.

This was the same team that won the British Masters Road Relay champs last yea. At Corwen,  won the cross country title by 8 minutes over the cumulative times for the 2nd placed MV55 team. There was just 1 second separating the 2nd and 3rd teams!

At Pontefract Race Course, Southport Waterloo had 7 runners in the Merseyside teams at the English Schools' Championships. Teams are eight with 6 to count and all our Southport Waterloo runners counted for their Merseyside team with Will Delamere and Caleb Still the 1st and 2nd counters for their Junior Boys team.

Members may recall that The Northern XC Champs were held here a few years ago and the wind was so strong tents were impossible to erect and club banner flags were bent horizontal. Conditions on Saturday were much better!

This prestigious championships started with the Inter Girls' race and Sydney Monahan Clarkson was in the Merseyside team. She ran 14:42 for the 3.5 kms finishing 154th of 343 girls and 5th counter for her county. Merseyside finished 8th team.

The Junior Boys were next with a major input from Southport Waterloo runners. Will Delamere was 8th overall of 343 boys running 10:15 for the 3.2 kms. Caleb Still was 24th of 343 in 10:35 and Eddy Clark was 80th in 11:01. All the boys counted for Merseyside, Will 1st, Caleb 2nd and Eddy 5th, helping Merseyside to a 7th place team finish.

Under 13 Grace Veevers featured in the Junior Girls' race over 3.2 kms. She finished 130th of 339 girls in 12:35, 6th counter for Merseyside finishing 6th team.

We had no club interest in the Inter Boys race but Reuben Donnelly ran for the Merseyside Senior Boys. He was 249th of 307 in 23:24 for the 6 kms, the longest race of the day. Merseyside finished 20th with Reuben their 6th counter.

Finally, Emily Dean ran in the Senior Girls' race. She was 222nd of 307 girls in 19:00 for the 4.1 kms. Merseyside finished 35th in this age category with Emily their 4th counter.

Our cross country runners have had a busy and exhausting run of league and championship fixtures and now derserve some respite before the Track & Field see gets under way in earnest.

Thanks to Karyn Hannaway for the Schools' photos reproduced here.  

Full results

10th March 2024: Two new Under 17 club records set at Manchester indoors

As the winter indoor and cross country season draws to a close, sixteen of our athletes, mostly juniors, were competing over the weekend. 

On Saturday, 6 juniors were in action representing Merseyside at Woolaton Park in Nottingham for the CAU Inter Counties XC Championships. Several more were privileged to be selected but were unable to attend. Nottingham is quite far to travel and with on-site parking abandoned this year because of surface water – which I understand had cleared by the time the races started - those travelling by car were advised to park in Nottingham town centre and take a bus to the park, adding about an hour to already long journey times. 

Under 13 Grace Veevers has had an unfortunate time over the last few weeks falling unwell and having to withdraw from the county championships and the Mid Lancs fixtures at Burnley and Beacon Park. But she had the courage to go to Nottingham and finished 140th of 298 girls. She was 7th counter for the Merseyside team finishing 6th of the 45 or so counties, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In the Under 15 Girls’ race, Sydney Monahan Clarkson competed and finished 204th of 294 in her first major national event. She was also 7th counter for the Merseyside team finishing 5th overall.

Our best club performance was, as expected, in the Under 15 Boys’ race where Will Delamere was 29th of 295 runners, 1st counter for Merseyside. Liam McCormick also had a good race finishing 123rd of 295 and 4th Merseyside counter. Merseyside was 14th overall.

We had two Under 17 Women running but not in the same race! Amelie Scott was 7th counter for Merseyside, 222nd of 266 finishers, that Under 17 Women’s team finishing 32nd overall. Emily Dean, also Under 17, was however entered for the Under 20 Women’s race where she finished 3rd counter for the Merseyside team that finished 21st overall. The Under 20 Women ran 6 kms, somewhat further than Emily would have run in the Mid Lancs League but similar to the Merseyside XC championships this year.

In the comfort of the indoor EIS Stadium in Sheffield, three of our Under 17s competed at the England Indoor Combined Events championships. Scarlett Adderley finished with a points total of 2708 for the Indoor Pentathlon achieving new PBs in 4 of her 5 events. Both Oliver Storey and Kieran Edmunds competed in the Indoor Heptathlon, Oliver scoring 2475 points with 5 new PBs and Kieran scoring 2244 points and achieving 3 new PBs. Individual performances were:

 (Bold = new PB)

Elsewhere on Sunday, seven more athletes attended the final Sale Harriers Indoor meeting of the season in Sportcity. A star of this group was Luke Ward in the 600m who went off fast and drew further and further ahead to win his race in 1:25. 04, a new Under 17 club record. Luke already holds the Under 15 Boys’ record and in fact 1:25.04 is the fastest time ever run by any club male in a 600m race. Will Rothwell ran 1:30.73 for 600m, a new PB, Graham Boreham ran 1:28.32 and Harry Lavery ran 2:07.84, another PB. In the sprints, Renee Adams was superb; running a new PB 7.97 for 60m to smash her old PB of 8.62, set in 2020, and take two 1/100th of a second off Amber Hughes’ Under 17 Women’s club record. And she still has another year in the age group!  Vet 45 Chris Burgess ran 8.09 for 60m and 41.63 for 300m. And finally, Matthew Nuttall put the shot 9m 48. 

Many of our senior runners would have been out, too, at park runs on Saturday. For what its worth, I note only 16 men and 11 women are recorded on the club rankings as having run a race so far this year. Unless you know otherwise …..

2nd March 2024: Mid Lancs XC finishes at a cold and wet Beacon Park; 4 divisional wins for senior men        (By Graham Boreham)

The Mid Lancs cross country season came to a close on a cold and wet early March Saturday at Beacon Park above Skelmersdale. Fun fact – it’s 11 years to the day since the Mid Lancs last came here, on 2nd March 2013, and the winner of the U11 girls race back then was a certain Keely Hodgkinson of Leigh Harriers…That was on a different course though, with the subsequent closure of the golf course here opening up much more parkland to run on, and what a course it was. Cross country runners have been almost spoilt with flat, featureless courses thus far in 2024, but this was the complete opposite, being a great test of pace management and hill climbing ability, made all the harder by at least 50% being liquid mud even before the first race had started! Many runners both young and old got their pacing wrong and people walking up the hills could be seen in just about every race. Although numbers were down across all races, being pretty local it was pleasing to see 12 junior athletes out, with the same number of seniors. Among the juniors there were 5 top 5 finishes with a further 3 in the top 10, while in the seniors David Hamilton was not only the first V55 finisher but 5th overall.

There were no U11 Girls competing at Beacon Park but it was great to see 4 U11 Boys line up at the start; Thomas Delamere, William Paybody, Sam Coughlan and Jack Mainey. Thomas had another excellent run over the 2km course and finished in a well deserved 10th place, while William came in for 24th spot, Jack 28th in his first race for the club and Sam 29th. While the boys were 1 short of the required number of team finishes to score this season, Thomas finished a very creditable 16th in the individual standings, a position which he is sure to improve on in the future with 2 more years as an U11.

Grace Veevers and Lucy Delamere lined up for the U13 Girlsrace over 2.5km. Howwever, illness recently has taken its toll on Grace and she was unable to finish. Lucy had a great run however, looking strong from beginning to end and was well clear in 4th at the finish, by far her best result of the winter. As with the U11 boys, the girls were 1 result short of scoring in the team standings, however Lucy finished 13th in the individual standings with Lauren Silcox, who was absent today finishing 2 places higher in 11th.

Once again there were no U13 Boys out today.  However, Sydney Monahan Clarkson competed for the U15 Girls in the same race, and like Lucy in the race before had an excellent run. Coming into the final straight she was in 2nd place, but while a girl from Kendal overtook her (and incidentally also overtook the long time leader just before the finish line) she was well clear in 3rd spot, also by far her best result of the winter.

William Delamere had already wrapped up the U15 Boys individual title with a perfect score before this race but as always with cross country, he went out from the gun with the intention to win. As was the case at Kendal right back at the start of the winter, his hill climbing ability was completely unmatched and on every uphill section his lead increased. When he crossed the finish line for his 9th consecutive Mid Lancs win, a streak which goes right back to the start of the 2022-23 season, the gap to the next man was at least 100m…Eddy Clark was also out for this one and his run was a great one, his pacing being absolutely spot on which gave him the energy for a kick in the final straight to take 4th place, again his best result of the winter by far. That gave Eddy a 6th place finish in the individual standings for the 23-24 season.

In the same race, Emily Dean and Amelie Scott were flying the flag for the U17 Women. Emily has been very consistent this winter, only failing to finish in the top 10 once and over the 2 lap, 4km, course kept up that consistency with a 2nd consecutive 4th place finish, which when combined with her 3rd from Blackpool and 5th from Lancaster gives her a 5th place finish in this year’s individual standings. Amelie has also been a very consistent runner over the course of this season and picked up another 6th place finish here to go with that from Burnley 3 weeks ago, giving her 7th spot in the standings for the winter.

The U17 Men’s flag has been flown almost entirely by Reuben Donnelly on his own this winter, but his run of results has been excellent and kept up that form on the very tough 6km course today. Despite getting a stitch ¾ of the way round, and before the final hill which also happened to be the steepest one, he still managed to keep up a solid pace right to the end for a well deserved 6th place. He finishes the winter joint 4th in the individual standings, a great result. 

There were 3 Senior Women out at Beacon Park, enough for a team finish which would prove very important in terms of the divisional standings. Andrea Scarborough was first home in 15th overall and 5th L40, followed by Michelle Spencer, 30th overall and 6th L45 then Gemma Delamere in 40th spot. The 3 ladies were 8th team overall on the day but 3rd of the division 1 teams giving them 5 points and best 4 total of 20, the same score as 3 of the other 6 teams but in terms of whole season results taking them into a 3rd place finish. 

9 of our runners lined up for the start of the Senior Men race and their efforts here yielded divisional wins for them in 4 age categories, in addition to multiple individual awards! The numbers competing were a way down on usual with only 95 finishers but that doesn’t detract in any way from the performance of David Hamilton who was solid from beginning to end; his 5th place finish overall and 1st V55 – by over 8 minutes – was well deserved. Next in was Alex Vernon with an 11th place finish, followed by John Delamere in 16th, James Paybody in 20th, Marc Singer in 31st, John Sprackland in 43rd and 2nd V60, Neil Adshead 47th and 3rd V60, Ken Lennon 53rd and 5th V60 and finally David Hemmings in 76th. 

David, Alex, John D, James, Marc and John S finished 1st team by a single point (120 to Wesham’s 121) giving them the same score in division 1 as Lancaster & Morecambe on best 4 results but, on the tie-break rule, it looks like  the top spot for the 2023-24 season goes to Lancaster & Morecambe . David, John D, James and John S were 1st V40 team by a much more comfortable 25 points, giving them the division 1 win with a perfect score, having taken maximum points in 5 out of the 6 fixtures, while David, John S and Neil were 1st V55 team by 31 points, giving them another perfect score team victory for this winter, once again having taken maximum points in 5 out of 6 fixtures. Finally, after failing to produce a team finish at Kendal or Sefton Park, the V60 men completed their perfect score team win today, with John S, Neil and Ken being 1st team for the 4th fixture in a row. 

On the individual side, Francois Rafferty picks up 2nd in the V40 category and 1st in the V50 category, with David Hamilton 3rd V50, John Sprackland 1st in the V60 category and Ken Lennon 3rd V60. Thanks to all team managers over the course of this winter’s Mid Lancs cross country season. Just the 2 cross country races left now for those who have been selected; the Inter Counties at Woolaton Hall in Nottingham on 9th March and the English Schools at Pontefract Racecourse on 16th March.

Beacon Park results | Team standings | Individual rankings