Midland Veterans League - Meeting 3 - The Dell - 11th July 2007

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It was a real pleasure to be at this meeting. We had sunshine, we had great team spirit and we had success. The women's team consisted of five who each did everything within their power to score points for the team. The same comment is true for the men's team except there were eight of them.

Led by Karen competing in five events and Julie in four, the women's team pulled of a very surprising and pleasing win. The team result was very close so the importance of Julie's 2K walk, Wendy's 1500m and Karen's 400m cannot be over-emphasised. During the meeting a Sparkhill athlete accused me of sadism seeing how hard our ladies team was working. I hope that he was joking and not from the Department of Health and Safety.

It was a surprise to see that Judy was not the victor in the 100A race, finishing a very close second. Julie won the 100B and the 400A, Karen the hammer and discus, Wendy the 400B and Debbie the 1500m. Wendy, Julie, Judy and Debbie led from start to finish in the medley relay, with the lead increasing all the time. Karen was third in the walk and long jump. Everyone's efforts gained sufficient points to finish three points ahead of Bromsgrove and Redditch and six in front of Worcester. The latter were the only club to field a complete team. We are now half a point behind B & R in the league table and will have to win the final meeting to finish top.

The men's team had only two maximum points. These were by John in the B walk and Derek in the M50 1500 in which he charged away from the field over the last lap to win very convincingly. However, there was a good collection of second places, starting with Windel in the B100, followed by Peter in the walk, Robin in the M60 high jump, which was the biggest surprise of the night, Robin and Windel in their 400m races, then Mike in the M40 1500 and Chris in the M50 shot, and ending with the medley relay team of Paul, Windel, Derek and Mike. Paul also contributed three individual third places, in the 100A, and the M40 400 and triple jump after an expert (?) demonstration of the technique from the team manager. It was obviously of tremendous value. Chris was third in the M35 discus, a similar placing to Windel in a hard fought high jump competition where he achieved his personal best as a Veteran athlete. This effort left him with legs in an unsuitable condition for the 1500 where he battled to fourth place.

The sum of all these efforts left us just ten points behind Worcester and almost thirty clear of third place Sparkhill. We remain second in the league table, but trail Worcester by four points and hold a similar advantage over Halesowen who are third.


The final league meeting is on Wednesday 8th August, also at the Dell.

The events on offer are:
200m M35,M40,M50,W35, W45, W50
800m M35,M40,M60,W35 A & B, 45
2k Walk M40,M50,W35,W45
3000m M40 A & B, M50, W35 A & B, W50
4x100m relay
Shot W35,W45, M40
Long Jump M60, W35 M35
Discus W50
Javelin M50
Pole Vault M35.

I hope that we can field another good team for the meeting. Thanks for all your efforts on 11th July, and a special thank you to Hazel, Roger and Scot who officiated for us.

Robin