Midland Veterans League - Meeting 1 - Birchfield - 9th May 2007

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Firstly, I am sorry I was unable to give much support to the teams during the evening because I was occupied in the control room. I missed a lot of the action and therefore this account will not do justice to the great efforts and enthusiasm of the team. Please will someone e-mail me with the running order of the women's relay so I can correct my list.

The impression obtained from seeing the end of most track races was that we were storming to victory in the women's match and pushing Worcester hard in the men's match. It didn't end exactly like that. Bromsgrove and Redditch came within two points of winning the women's competition, with Halesowen worryingly close in third, while the men finished sixteen points behind Worcester, but well clear of Halesowen in third. We almost fielded complete teams, the men were minus a high jumper and the women a W50 shot putter. Our nearest rivals had full cards.

We had three new faces in the men's team. Ronnie McWilliam became our first ever M35 competitor and he celebrated with a fine win in the 1500m after a second place in the B 400m. Paul Rogers ran in the M35 100m although he is nearer fifty than forty. He had a fine debut in second place and was only a little slower than our greased lightning female sprinters, his wife, Julie, and Judy. They proved their superiority again by setting a faster 4 X 200m relay time than the men, although if Gordon had had more than a few minutes rest after the 1500m we might have turned it around. Don Field raced on the track for the very first time and finished third in the M50 400m. Not bad for a distance man. Val Carter was the newcomer to the women's team, winning the 400m B race and helping Judy. Julie and Debbie to win the relay by eleven seconds. Her return to the club is most welcome.

Our walkers did well. Karen was not quite at her best, probably because of the delayed high jump she did, Peter was second and Pam did a personal best with second place in the B race. John, racing for points at short notice, was as dependable as ever. Unless my memory is playing tricks, as it often does these days, Julie is developing a winning streak in the 400m to rival Ed Moses' record. Windel was another winner, building up from a third place in a 100m, to second in his 400m and finally first in the M40 1500m. In fact the 1500m series was probably our best ever, with Gordon winning the M60, Debbie winning her race by over half a minute and Rachel gaining a good second place. Karen competed in the W45 event and gained vital points without which the team would have been second. But what of our busiest woman athlete, Hilary Boszko. She, like Windel, won her final event , the W50 triple jump, after fourth in the W45 100m,third in the W45 high jump and third again in the W50 400m. Chris did three field events. Masquerading as Chris Prince he finished third in the M40 hammer, and followed with fourth in the M60 shot. Strangely his performance for 5th in the M50 high jump would have won the M35 event. Peter was fourth in the M35 javelin. Many thanks to Wilf who ran the M60 100m, thus depriving me of my chance to get wet.

Thanks to you all for managing things so well without a manager. I hope to see you all at Redditch on Thursday 14th June.

My final words of appreciation and thanks go to Stuart Paul and his team of officials who had to contend with the wet weather at the beginning of the meeting. From that team I would like to pick out Leon Simpson and Lyn Orbell who made the task of producing the results very much easier, and Lyn fitted in the announcing as well.

Robin