Can I say a massive thank to everyone involved in our successful day at the showground today, what better tribute could we pay to such a wonderful man, Brian Ireland. To have Jill say that we did her Dad proud today means the world to each and everyone of us. Brian came up with all of the new ideas for today’s event, and he takes a huge amount of the credit that we received from our fellow athletes for today’s successful Oxford Mail cross country fixture. He would also have been chuffed to bits with the success you produced on the field, as the club recorded the best results at this 50th fixture since we joined the League in 2006. There were individual wins in seven age groups, and big wins in both the Senior Women’s and Men’s teams.

Newbury A.C marked their 50th meeting in the Oxford Mail cross country league with their best ever set of results, as they played host for the first time at Newbury Showground.
Over 100 members not only came to race, but to pay tribute to the club president and Berkshire County timekeeper Brian Ireland who sadly passed away last month while measuring the courses for this very fixture.
A 1 minute applause before both the two Senior races to celebrate Brian’s life and dedication to the sport spurred the entire team on to finish clear winners in both the Women’s and Men’s events. Such was the dominance in the Female races that they won seven of the ten individual age groups. Three of the reigning Champions made a winning start to this season as Sophie Crumly continued her first place streak to win the Senior Women’s race, and with Jess Franklin the leading Veteran 1 in 4th place overall, and Yasmin Ryder in 5th the first under 20 home, they finished 28 points ahead of Alchester in second, with Newbury AC’s B team 3rd. They had earlier seen a double win in the Under 15/17 Girls combined race, Izzy Fry took control from the start and never looked back to win, Kitty Shepherd-Cross secured 2nd in the race to win the under 15 age group. Josie Robertson bided her time to perfection in the under 11’s race to open up a 33 second winning time over last season’s overall runner-up Harriet Hillman from Swindon Harriers. The Senior Men’s team won by a huge 111 points as the 7 scoring A team runners all finished in the top 26 places from the 315 strong field; James Craggs was one of many to produce a personal best performance in 3rd, Veteran 1 Andrew Ind came 7th, Steve Barnes 11th, Phil Marshall 16th, Steve Elsmere 20th, Peter Crisp 24th & Mike Robbins 26th.
Oliver Hamlin won his first cross country race for the club in the under 9’s, and there were also runner up spots for Vladimir Tsagov in the under 17 Men, Charlotte Clover under 20 Women, Sarah Fowler Veteran 3 Women, and Irwin Fairclough Veteran 3 Men

26 young athletes competed for the first time in a club cross country event, and a further 8 adults. All of these athletes making their League Debut meant we were able to top the 100 competitors mark for the first time, we had 104 finishers.

Andy Tuttle.