THE WOMEN led the way as Stratford Athletic Club’s masters once again showed why they are one of the strongest teams in the Midlands by finishing third in the Midland Veterans League Cup Final.
Stratford’s athletic talent was spread thin across this event, the Stratford 10k and Stratford AC’s own Club Championships on the same day but, despite this, Stratford were only beaten by the much larger clubs of Rugby & Northampton and Worcester and by a smaller margin than last year.
As always, the ladies led the way with some scintillating performances despite the poor weather conditions.
Paula Williams competed in ten events, averaging an incredible second place across all of them.
Elaine Ledden demonstrated her massive improvement in this, her first year of competition, with second place in the 100m in a personal best and club record time and third place in the 400m.
Christine Coote, returning from injury to compete in her first high jump competition of the year, jumped a new club record o1.15m, while taking second and third places in the 100m and 200m.
Sheila Lammas had a successful day of middle distance races at 800m, 1,500m and 3,000m as well as running legs in both relays.
Meanwhile, Alison Bagnall ran a strong 3,000m, before trying the 400m in individual and relay form, as well as a 2,000m walk.
Having run the Stratford 10k in the morning in a new personal best time, Kate Sergent dashed up to Tamworth to run 1,500m before taking third place in her 2,000m walk.
Paivi McMillan left the Club Championships to take a strong second place in her discus event and the evergreen Jean Humphreys gained third place in her first ever shot put competition after running another good 100m.
John Boxall led the charge for the men, starting with his first ever 200m hurdles before running, jumping and throwing in seven other events, including taking second place in a strong M50 javelin competition.
Andy List and Tony Humphries started the day with their own inter-club rivalry in the pole vault, both setting age group club records, before being busy and variously successful across a variety of events for the rest of the day.
Paul Hawkins strode to victory in his 2,000m walk and David Smyth avenged a disqualification earlier in the season with a strong second place in his walk.
Smyth, together with Malcolm Bowyer and Wayne Vickers, performed well across the middle distance events, while team captain David Jones demonstrated his versatility by running 3,000m in a good time before competing in the high jump until it was interrupted by the need to run the 400m.
Phil Brennan also returned from 10k duties to take an impressive third place in his 200m against ‘proper sprinters’ and Peter Coote spent the day wandering from event to event to win some valuable points.
