BRAT scorch to victory in Telford…
The BRAT track and field team secured their second win on the trot in the Midlands Senior League on Sunday 17th July in blazing hot conditions.
There were some discussions held during the week as to whether the meeting should go ahead given the weather forecast – indeed the Southern league didn’t proceed with their matches. Thankfully the decision to run the meeting proved to be the correct one, especially as it meant that the BRAT athletes could once again, show what they are made of whatever the weather!
Our A string winners on the day were JP Stolberg in the steeplechase, Dan Robinson in the 3000m (Dan is unbeaten so far this season), Bonheur Tshibola in the 100 hurdles, a double for Jenny Scott in the hammer and discus and our women’s 4×100 relay team.
In the B string Paul Joliffe in the 3000m, Prince Ayeh in the 110 hurdles, JP again, this time in the 400 hurdles, Mali Lloyd-Griffiths in the long jump, May Smith in the Shot, Lillian Smith in the Javelin and Isla O’Connor in the Discus. Our women throwers were almost totally dominant with Jenny Scott also taking second place in the A string for the Javelin and Shot.
After all of this we ran out winners on 356 points, comfortably ahead of Cannock on 332 and hosts Telford on 331. Coventry, who were leading the division before this meeting came home in 4th place on 284.
Therefore after three of the four meetings the table looks like this;
BRAT 16 points
Coventry 14 points
Cannock 14 points
Stoke 8 points
Telford 7 points
Abingdon 4 points
With just the Stoke meeting to come on Saturday 13th August it’s still all to play for. Coventry and Cannock will be fighting to secure promotion, whilst Stoke will be keen to avoid relegation and with home advantage should have little difficulty in getting athletes to turn out.
This is where my appeal to all BRAT athletes comes in… our last appearance in the top flight was ten years ago, in the intervening years, we’ve been relegated twice, lost the track for four years, lost nearly two years to a pandemic yet still managed to hang on in there and give ourselves a fighting chance of promotion, which we deserve!
However, it’s bang, slap in the middle of the holiday period and it also clashes with the Midland Under 17 championships – we are desperately short of athletes!
Can I appeal to all distance runners to make yourselves available for this meeting. If we can fill as many spaces as possible then there’s no reason why we can’t finish in the top three in Stoke and gain automatic promotion back into division one – please consult your diaries and let me know if you are available.
Nigel Clegg
Track & Field Team Manager
Thanks as usual to Toby Gosnall for the fantastic photos which are on the BRAT Flickr Site https://www.flickr.com/photos/birmingham_rowheath_ac/albums