Tooth and Claw at Div. 2!

Tooth and Claw at Div. 2!

A frantic final day relegation fight between BRAT athletes and the Wolves resulted in success for us…

Sunday 4th August saw the final meeting of the Midland Senior Athletics League season at Wolverhampton & Bilston. After the first three meetings Gloucester and Rugby were all but assured of promotion to division one, whilst Coventry were safe in mid-table and Cheltenham had already been relegated. So it came down to a straight fight between BRAT and the Wolves.

In what turned out to be a tense affair, Wolves taking an early lead, we somehow managed to overhaul their total with some excellent individual performances and a great overall team effort to finish on an impressive 341 points, just a single point behind Gloucester (342), one ahead of Rugby (340) and most importantly ahead of Wolves on 290.

Making BRAT debuts were Rosalie and Rosette Nyanguile, Nicole Travasso, plus Ben Beaumont and Nick Seagrave in the steeplechase- all of whom gained invaluable points for the team on the day.

BRAT winners on the day were; Henry Brocklehurst and Richard Bayliss (1500 A & B), Mark Ince (3000 B), Prince Ayeh (400 hurdles B), Khari Lewis-Mitchell and Ren Zhang (110 hurdles A & B), Alexander Clegg and Hannes Petzer (Pole Vault A and B), Alexander again in the discus B, Molly Browne (1500 A) and Judy Bruce-Golding (High jump B).

It’s been a frustrating season – injuries and non-availability of athletes put us in a position we should never have been in, as we proved at this meeting, when we get everyone out to compete, we are good enough to be challenging for promotion not battling against relegation.

The league dates for the 2020 season will be published in November – can I ask everyone to take note of them and try to leave the four dates clear in their diary.

Nigel Clegg
Track & Field team manager