History-makers!

Congratulations to the Senior Men’s team who won historic bronze medals at the South of England 12-Stage Road Relay Championships in Milton Keynes on Saturday (which doubles as the qualification event for the Nationals) – the first medals for 52 years! Not to be outdone in the bright sunny, but windy conditions, the B team also made history, finishing in 14th overall and second B-team. 

The day was notable, too, for a solo U15 Boys 5K bronze for Thomas Whorton (right) who came home in 16:40, a PB by one minute, and a new HW Club record.

Entering the track at the Stantonbury Stadium track for the finish Thomas turned on the speed which secured him the silver medal at the National Indoor Championships over 800m in February – to come home just one second behind the second-placed athlete.

Back in 1969 and 1972 the Senior Men’s team came home winners in this 12-Stage event, always fiercely competitive, given the strength of Southern Clubs, but since then medals have been tantalisingly just out of reach.

Last year the team finished fourth in Olympic Park, a repeat of the heartbreak-position at Milton Keynes in 2022. However on the back of silver medals at the equally hard-fought Southern Cross Country Championships, and with a fourth Surrey Cross Country League title under their belts, there was a real sense of expectation in the camp as GB International Stuart McCallum headed out of the stadium on the first (long) leg of the event, which alternates long and short stages of 8.65km and just under 5km.

Stuart ran 26:34 to hand over in eighth to Tom Jervis, rapidly coming back to his dependable best after an injury time-out. His 15:10 time over the first short leg lifted the team into seventh, and so began the rise through the positions as Jonny Cornish notched 26:27 to move into fourth, with Henry Silverstein following in 15:18 to put the team in bronze medal contention.

Below: Stuart McCallum setting the tone on leg 1. Thanks, as always, to Mark Hookway for the all the race photographs below.

A storming leg by Andrew Penney (above left), who clocked 26:13 – the fastest HW long leg – gained the team another place. Next it was the turn of Charlie Wyllie (above right) to put in a formidable 14:51 leg at the halfway mark, the fastest HW short stage and fourth fastest overall, which swept the team to just 40 seconds off the lead.

Charlie Eastaugh and Fred Slemeck ran 27:03 and 15:13 respectively, followed by Toby Cooke in his first race for HW since joining from Winchester. He clocked 26:31, handing over to George Mallett who came home in 15:27, with a  minute lead over the third-placed athlete, with two to go: team captain James Stockings on leg eleven, and Bradley Goater, who ran a storming last leg in 2022, back after moving away from London, and hoping to repeat the performance. Bad luck had hit James in the day before the race though, as he had been laid low with a stomach illness, while in the warm-up Bradley felt a twinge in his calf, having been nursing an injury niggle over the previous weeks. 

Jeopardy is rarely far from the 12-Stage, which is what makes this event so exciting yet nerve-racking – but James rallied heroically, pushing on through the pain and completely spent at the finish. While he couldn't quite hold onto second place, he ran 28:24 to leave Bradley a small gap to try to close for silver. He duly began to catch the Cambridge & Coleridge athlete ahead, but with the advice of team mates ringing in his ears, resisted the temptation to go all out and risk pulling up, concentrating on keeping a minute gap to the Bedford & County athlete behind as he brought the team home safely in 15:22 to clinch third place.  One for all, all for one, and jubilation all round.

For the B team, Ed Mallett, unlucky to miss out on selection for the A team, staked his claim to promotion for the Nationals, running the first leg in 26:57 to finish in 14th, just 23 seconds behind Stuart McCallum for the A team. George Brown, another making his first appearance since joining the Club, moved the team briefly up into 13th in 15:38. Alex Sutton and Finn Johnson followed in 28:25 and 16:14 respectively, with Alex Robinson and Chris McIlroy running 28:39 and 16:22 to maintain 14th place. As George Mallett, chronicler of the Club's exploits for the London News Online, noted, the remaining long legs were within 10 seconds of each other as the team shifted between 13th and their final position of 14th. Sam Todd clocked 28:31, Ryan McAllister 28:40, and Eoin Brady 28:30, while on the short legs Simon Wade (16:58), Jamie Bannister (17:24) and Richard Jones (16:57) were similarly consistent over the short legs.

Full results

And so to Sutton Park, where the goal is to better the sixth place of 2022, but the dream is to go higher still – the question is, how high? In 2022 for a fleeting moment the team flirted with fourth place, and last year Charlie Eastaugh sparked a burst of excitement as he headed into the handover in third, but in the end the team finished in seventh, underlining the truth that anything can happen over the course of four hours, as team managers' strategies unfold and the guessing game intensifies: have other teams front-loaded or saved the best to last? Will there be surprise appearances such as the clutch of Olympians who turned out for their Clubs last year? 

'That's the beauty of the event; why everyone loves it, right?' says coach Ben Noad, who with team manager and fellow coach Keith Scofield has had the unenviable task of selecting the teams and shuffling the pack after the Milton Keynes dress rehearsal. Which, as he acknowledges, is both 'a blessing and a curse, because you are always going to upset someone! But ask any team manager and they will say if you want to compete at this level, such heartaches are what you need, painful as they are!''

If there is a science to loading the perfect 12-stage team, he considers, ‘you have to know your athletes, just as they know themselves how they handle pressure, whether they need to have athletes around them to have a battle with, or have the temperament to run to order, even if they don't see another soul for the whole of their leg.

'Last year we front-loaded the A team to generate some excitement and motivate the guys on the later legs to give it their all and hang on, but now we have strength throughout the squad, so it will be more of a slow-burn. The plan is to start well, build it up strongly through stages three to nine, and hopefully give the guys on the last legs enough to push on from, if there is a chance of a medal'. He also has high hopes for the B team. 'To finish 14th and second B team in the Southerns was amazing, so they have a real chance to finish in the top three B teams’, he says. 'In previous years we have needed quite a lot of luck but, with the squad we have now, we are actually in the hunt!

Below: sharing the limelight at the South of England 12-Stage Road Relays with winners Highgate Harriers, and silver medallists, Cambridge & Coleridge AC