Herne Hill Harriers’ second match at Battersea produced an even bigger victory than the first one. This time we won almost two thirds of the events and the margin was 28 points. Hillingdon were again second, although Serpentine halved the distance behind them in third place.
The honours were shared equally between track and field. Des Austin won both M35 shot and hammer, whilst Derek Prentice won the M60 shot and was second in the M50 hammer.
Masakatsu Kondo won the M35 triple jump, maybe at the expense of his performance in his main event the long jump, which he also won anyway. Akin Oyediran won the M50 triple jump and was second in the long jump.
Bobby Cooper, Pablo Sisca and Kwei Sankofa put in solid performances in the 200, but on this occasion it was the middle distance races that most caught the eye.
We welcomed M35 Basil Wallace for his league debut. In recent times he’s done his racing away from the track, although this didn’t show as he came second in the B string 800 and was the overall winner of the 3000.
Vic Maughn judged the A string 800 perfectly, taking the lead from Roger Coyle of Serpentine on the last lap and holding off Roger’s late challenge. Tony Harran won the B string 3000.
It was nice to see M65 John Garber racing for us again after a longish absence. Although he has been squeezed out of M60 scoring races by Mike Mann and Steve Knight, his performance as a non-scorer in the 800 would have been good enough to have won the M60. Meanwhile Mike and Steve showed that they can compete very well not only as M60s, but also in M50 races.
We entered a strong team in the final event, the 4 x 100, and crossed the finish line, only to be disqualified following a botched handover, a rare occurrence for us.
We will now travel to our third match at Hillingdon in a very strong position.
Full results can be downloaded below.
Dave Wilson