Northern League 3WC Match Two

Stretford, Sunday 19^thJune 2019

Match two went very well for Trafford, not least because we had several significant firsts: first time Colin had competed for a decade, first time Greg and Fatima had officiated, and first time Rivi Brown was assistant team manager.  We accumulated 392 points at this match to secure second place.  It’s an improvement of 33 on the first match, largely thanks to the additional 25 officials’ points we gained.  Credit to Fatima Ahmed, Mike Harris, Greg Marcroft, Chris Morrison, Ryan Sciacca and Jeff Prest for being our excellent field officials.  Shout out to Kamil who refereed the field for the first time.

There were several exceptional performances recorded, with PBs from Jerel Livingston (making his Northern League debut), Greg Kelly, Jake Fletcher, Hayley Perrin (outdoor), Rush Lewis (debuting in the steeplechase), Darren Russell, Dan Atkinson and myself (yay!).

It was great to see Chloe Hocking making an impression on her Northern League debut, with wins in the 400 B, both relays and a second in the 200m B!  Likewise, Greg Kelly was on form as he ran under 17 minutes for the first time in the 5000m.  Jemma and Roger balanced parenting with victories in their throws.  Jemma impressively won the A discus, shot and hammer, she won the B javelin too, only bettered by a 28m throw from Hayley as she returned energised from her 4x1 leg to win the A javelin!  Jake Fletcher was a late call-up in the shot, but nailed a PB regardless and then went over 40m in his javelin.

We have finished second in both matches so far, and there are four matches in total.  Looking at the league table, the battle for the top two promotion spots is between Bury (12 points), ourselves (10 points) and East Cheshire (8 points).  Bury are looking very strong this season, furthermore they have home advantage at the next fixture, so the challenge is to keep our noses ahead of East Cheshire at the third match to cement our second place.

The league points per match placing are assigned as: first 6, second 5, third 4.

Full results will be available here: https://www.northernathletics.co.uk/track-field-league/

Simon O’Meara