Southern Athletics League – Tonbridge

On a very hot and sunny day, Newbury AC took their smallest team of the season so far down to Tonbridge for the fourth round of the Southern Athletics League, facing the home team along with Dartford Harriers and Worthing & District Harriers.

The team got off to a perfect start, with the first track event of the day, the 400m hurdles producing wins for both Monique Krefting and Jemma Colbourne in the women’s A and B strings. The men’s equivalent saw an A string win for Sam Plumb and a solid B string third place for Matt Davies, making Newbury the early pacesetters. This race also saw Sam pick up the men’s “athlete of the match” award. However, this would prove to be the highlight of the day, as from then on in the opposition upped their game, with Dartford and Tonbridge showing us exactly why they were placed second and third in the league heading into this fixture. Despite some promising individual performances all round, Newbury wins proved hard to come by.

Nobody seemed to have mentioned this to Monique Krefting though, who showed just how versatile she is, competing in no less than nine events. She followed up her 400m hurdles with further wins in the 400m flat and triple jump, second place in the high jump, third places in the shot put and javelin and a fourth place in the long jump. And if that wasn’t enough, Monique rounded off the day helping both ladies relay teams to third and fourth places.

Newbury’s other winners on the day included Sam Plumb, who followed up his hurdles win with strong wins in both the 110m hurdles and the 200m, where his time of 22.05 was only just over a tenth of a second off the senior men’s club record. After being pushed down to second place by Worthing in both the shot put and hammer, the ever reliable Bob Broadbridge was pleased to round off his day with victory in the discus, while a superbly well timed final kick gave Yasmin Ryder victory in the women’s 800m A string. Sam Dredge was another lady with a busy schedule, completing the Newbury winners list with victory in the B string high jump, whilst also securing personal best performances on track in the 800m (second B string) and 200m (fourth A). Sam followed this up with second A in the 2000m steeplechase, fourth A in the 100m hurdles, and second B in her first ever pole vault competition.

Other Newbury second places finishes came from Jemma Colbourne (200m A), Jess Franklin (1500m B), Becky Coxhead (3000m B and 2000m steeplechase B), James Craggs (3000m steeplechase A) and Phil Carter (Triple Jump B), whilst Sara Rudd (100m hurdles B and Long Jump B), Emma Guite and Caroline Tuttle in the hammer (A and B), Steve Elsmere (3000m steeplechase B) and Ian Payne (Discus B and Hammer B) picked up two points each for a third place.

Thanks also go to the other athletes who gave their best for the club – Matt Plumb, Tom Hodgskin, Mike Robbins, Peter Crisp, Bruce Bamber, Sally Herbert, Becky Downie, Josh Derbyshire, Tom Teece, Will Tyson and Simon Barrett, along with the officials and coaches whose hard work often gets overlooked. Final result: Tonbridge 209.5 points, Worthing 188, Dartford Harriers 186.5, Newbury 152.