Heaton Park was again the venue for the Greater Manchester Schools x-country. On a hilly course allowing spectators to see most of the race, Trafford runners were competing for their area teams trying to make the Greater Manchester teams that will compete in March in the English Schools x-country final.

Before the trial races there were primary school races, with the best performance coming from Thomas Daly, showing his experience and stamina to come through the field for 2nd place. In the school year 7 races Megan Boyer was the clubs best performer finishing 6th. In the boys year 7 race there were good runs from Joe Thomas (17th) and Noah Byrnes (28th).

In the Junior races (school years 8 and 9) Trafford boys were out in force with Pio Aron 2nd, Adrian White 3rd, Fin Dobson Emmas 4th, Tim Ye 6th, Evan Lewis 9th, Tio Austin 11th and Ben Gardner 13th. News from the Cheshire County race is that inter boys Ben Keeley and Archie Greenwood had good runs making the Cheshire team finishing 2nd and 6th with Tom Harris in 23rd. The girls were led by Rachel Bowden in 11th closely followed by Ursula Bailey in 14th and backed up by Anna Thomas 31st and Beth Stanley 35th. Over in the Cheshire Schools race Ava Bygrave continued her improvement finishing 17th.

The Inter races (school years 10 and 11) saw Freddie Meredith win by 45 seconds, Jay Hutchinson had a great run to move through the field and claim the silver medal. Charlie Stanway made it a 1, 2, 3 for Trafford with a good comeback race and just to show Traffords dominance James Walton was 4th and Josh Watson 9th. In the girls inter race there was a close battle in the top 10 runners but Ava (3rd) and Sara Clough (7th) secured places in the GM team. They were backed up by strong runs from Isobel Thomas (14th), Martha McCormack (17th), Suzannah Ford (26th) and Grace Hunt (29th).  Best run of the day came from the Cheshire County Champs, where Elizabeth Sinclair picked up the bronze medal in the Inter girls race. 

In the Senior races (school years 12 and 13) Louie McCormack continued his improvement this winter with a great run moving through to finish 2nd. He was backed up by Will Parker (10th), Jack Haworth (11th), Ned Silvey (12th) and Jamie Robertson (13th). In the senior girls race Freya Griffiths was always close to the leaders finishing in 5th place and with another improvement Cleo Bentall was 13th. The race at the front had some controversy when in the last 400m a senior girl jumped out of the bushes in front of long time leader, East Cheshires Emilia Platt and tried to pretend she had won the race. Emilia still managed to out sprint the girl and officials then removed the girl from the finishing funnel.

Results can be found here...https://gmaa.org.uk/cross-country/2023-schools-x-country-results/