Lucy leads the Herne Hill Surrey League charge in Beckenham

Despite grey skies, the autumn leaves provided a stunning backdrop as Herne Hill Harriers showed up in force with 17 women and 36 men finishers in the second Surrey Cross Country League fixture of the season in Beckenham Place Park on Saturday afternoon. 

This strong numerical turnout was backed up by excellent individual and team results. The women’s A and B teams of five runners each secured impressive second place finishes, with Lucy Jones dominating the race to win by a clear 17 seconds.

The men’s teams with ten to score in each team also performed well with the A team fifth on the day and the club also claiming fourth among B teams. They were led by another in-form athlete Brandon Dewar, who produced an outstanding fifth place individual finish.

The women continued their superb early season results, with Jones going from strength to strength as her confidence and race fitness progress. She followed up an eyebrow raising run at the Mansfield relays a week earlier with an emphatic victory in Beckenham. 

Sophie Tooley had also raced well in those relays in a National top ten team and followed up with her best cross-country result to date as she finished an excellent fourth behind Jones. The A team was completed by Grace Leyland 19th, W40 Gaby Reynolds 28th on her 43rd birthday and Darcie Hey 32nd, still recovering from recent illness.

The B team featured good runs from Helena Keenan 36th, Jenny Nandi 37th, Charlotte Davies 42nd, W40 Leonie Biemolt 51st and Megan Gildea 67th.

This was another show of squad depth, only rivalled locally by the Belgrave Harriers women who took both the A and B team wins. After two races in the league season Belles have the leading A and B teams with Herne Hill lying a clear second in both categories in the overall league table. 

The men’s teams showed a good improvement from the first match last month with fifth and fourth positions for their A and B teams respectively. Dewar followed up a big PB at the recent Valencia Half Marathon with his best cross-country race so far to date finishing fifth in a top-class field in what is undoubtedly the strongest league in the country this year.

Twin debutants Morgan and Harry Roberts made a good difference as the former was the next Harriers man in 32nd and his brother was ninth team scorer in 74th. The remaining A team men were Daniel Shaw 34th, Andrew Clarke 38th, Lewis Laylee 49th, Jack Brotchie 63rd, Fabien Whitelock 64th and second U20, Sam Brashaw 68th and Joe Elliott 86th.

The B team – the next ten men from the club across the line – provided invaluable backup for the A team as well as their own good result. Ever improving Charlie Wood was only just outside an A team finish in 87th overall and was fourth among U20s. Wood was followed in by Ronan Tanguy 92nd, Ashley Goncalves 95th, M40 Jeff Cunningham 100th, Ross Brown 123rd, Matt Cartwright 138th, M45 Ben Millar 148th, Ryan Willmott 149th, Fintan Kearney 154th, Stephen McLeod 163rd. 

John Cousins and Calum Murphy were close behind in 164th and 166th and a further 14 Herne Hill men in their wake all added safety in numbers in a race that saw 316 finishers. 

The next league fixture will be in mid-January, where the aim will be even better quality and quantity for the women’s and men’s teams, with some other important team events to contest in the interim. 

Geoff Jerwood

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