Sportshall Athletics – Birmingham League Final Standings
Right, i’m not doing a super long write-up this time. Just to say, i’m fairly sure that we were the loudest team at Sportshall over the three events. My voice is somewhat coming back, but certainly a level of croakiness that reflects how kermitted I was to shouting our athletes on. Because I love writing about me (who better?!), I was impressed that I knew all our athletes’ names. Fellow junior athletes, alas, your generic “come on BRAT” shouts languish behind my name specific shouts! I’m only mentioning this latter point as we had 72 athletes in total across the 3 events, so perhaps it is forgivable that not everyone knows absolutely everyone in the team! So, how did we do? U11 boys – 3rd U13 boys – 2nd U11 girls – 2nd U13 girls – 3rd U15 boys – 3rd U15 girls – 4th The full results can be…
Good luck to BRAT juniors in upcoming national XC champs!
The junior cross-country league season was completed in February, but the biggest events of the XC season are yet to come. There were a number of county/regional races that took place over December and January, attracting the best athletes from Birmingham and the surrounding area. As a result of outstanding performances in these regional championships, we have had a number of athletes selected for the inter-counties XC championships and the English Schools XC championships. In both of these events, athletes will represent their county in a national level competition. Make no mistake about it, attaining county selection is a major achievements, so we’d like to congratulate the following athletes on their selection and give them a big “good luck” ahead of their upcoming races: Inter Counties XC Champs – Saturday March 11th – Prestwold Hall: U13G: Amira Emery U15B: Jack Price U15G: Alba Smith-Pena U17M: Dylan Teasdale, George Astbury, Morgan…
Spring Road Relays Sign-up
The Spring Road Relay’s are coming up and we are looking for people to sign up, this is one of biggest events in the BRAT calendar and a great chance to meet people from across the club. It is on our doorstep so we want to put out a strong showing. When: Saturday 1st April Where: Sutton Park, Birmingham Who: Everyone! Please sign up below, everyone is welcome to get involved! Please contact the following to enter: Women’s’ team manager: Helen PikeSign up for the Senior Women’s Team here. Men’s’ team manager: Dan RobinsonSign up for the Senior Men’s Team here.
A Return to the Birmingham Sportshall League
It’s been 3 years since we had a Sportshall League, the last competition was February 2020! With that in mind, it was great to get back to what I casually refer to as “organised chaos” (it over ran the time slot by an hour, so i’m going to go with simply “chaos” for this weekend’s event!) Anyway, it’s a fantastic opportunity for our juniors, particularly the younger juniors, to get some competition experience over what is often a long cold winter. Many of the athletes have never competed for the club before, so it’s great to see them getting involved. I have a number of coaches to thank for picking the BRAT team, but the general principle we went with was enjoyment and inclusivity. What was particularly pleasing as a team manager was successfully collecting all the numbers in at the end of the event. Just kidding (although I still…
Men’s XC – Warley Woods
Warley Woods was the place to be……
Men’s Cross Country – mid season update
Amazingly we are already half way through the Cross Country season and a lot has been happening, with loads of BRATs turning out for the team (46 so far). The Midland XC relays at Wolverhampton were the opener to the season. We arrived with 4 senior teams and a Masters team trying to better last year’s Bronze medal at this event. James Drakeford ran the first and notoriously competitive first leg and gave us a solid start handing over in 9th place to Adam Peacock whose storming run brought us up to 3rd place. Dan Robinson held us in 3rd and opened the gap over 4th place Tipton by a few more seconds. JP Stolberg started the final leg 58 seconds behind 2nd place Rugby & Northampton and closed to within 8 seconds at the finish, just running out of time to overtake. So in the end we had to…
Another strong XC performance for the BRAT Junior Team!
Another excellent turn out with 59 BRATs competing on the fast grassland course at Newbold Revel. After our excellent 4th place at the first match at Walsall, we again finished 4th on the day which consolidated our overall position in the league. The standout performance on the day was Nya 5th in U11 Girls, and she has two more years in this age group, a massive improvement by Josh finishing 6th in U13 Boys and Jack 9th U15 Boys and Amira 10th in U13 Girls. But remember this is a team effort and all the athletes contribute to the overall score! If you finish 50th you score 151 points, so it all adds to the performance of the club. it was great seeing so many athletes out enjoying themselves and especially the support of the parents and team managers! The next match in the league is at Warley Woods on…
New Club Record for 10 Miles at Portsmouth
The Club record for 10 Miles was previously set by Brian McEvoy in April 1990 at Wolverhampton. He ran 49:46 and his record has stood for over 32 years, until last week (16th October) in Portsmouth, when Charlie Davis ran 49:18 to smash Brian’s performance by nearly 30 seconds! Charlie finished 9th in the race and was ‘very satisfied’ with the run, not even knowing he had broken the Club record. The 10 Miles is seldom raced in today’s road calendar which now tends to focus more on the half-marathon distance but the longevity of Brian’s record stood as a testament to his sheer hard work and determination. When Brian, who is still a club member, found out about his record finally been broken, he reflected that ‘the record would be broken one day.’ Congratulations to Charlie on a brilliant performance! Check out the club rankings HERE
A great start to the XC season for BRAT juniors!
Taking a step back from standout individual and team performances, it’s worth mentioning how the scoring works for the cross-country league. Each race has 5 scoring athletes apart from the u17 categories that have 3 scoring athletes. Typically, each athlete will obtain between 100-200 points depending on their finishing position. If we don’t field a full team of scorers in each race, we will lose at least 100 points (but typically more- 1st 200pts 50th 151pts) per athlete missing, because our team is not complete. So, what was particularly pleasing yesterday, was that we fielded a FULL TEAM in each and every age category, for perhaps the first time ever. Yes, that means that all of you that turned up yesterday played a part in what was a very good start to the cross-country season. My memories of doing cross-country as a junior were those cold and rainy days when…
Women’s Cross Country
Cross Country season is fast approaching, and the cross country team are looking for athletes to take part, it’s a great opportunity to meet people from across the club too.
BRAT Field Fest
Due to losing the track to redevelopment and subsequently Covid striking, BRAT last held a licenced athletics open event on June 26th 2013, so the Field Fest on 11th September was quite a momentous occasion for the club. 65 athletes (including 41 BRATs) from 17 different clubs took part in the 12 field events which were laid on, resulting in 107 entries overall on the day. Athletes had travelled from as far afield as Aberdare, Windsor and Trafford to take part! The U11’s took part in a triathlon which comprised of Long Jump, Howler and Speedbounce (and medals), while the U13’s – U20’s could do up to three events which consisted of Long Jump, High Jump, Javelin, Discus, Hammer and Shot. Although the day started with a deep set autumnal mist, the weather held and it was a pleasant temperature. The coffee van was early and the ice-cream van got…
Autumn Road Relays Sign-up
The Autumn Road Relay’s are coming up and we are looking for people to sign up, for one of biggest events in the BRAT calendar.