BAL 10 in 100 Cup Final
September 4th
Copthall Stadium, Barnet London.
The Team
BWF AC
were the ONLY Club in Britain to have both a men’s and a ladies team in this
prestigious cup final; a big achievement for a relatively small club. The
small, but doughty band of eight ladies, seven men and one manager/driver took
to the road on Friday evening bound for down south a foreign land somewhere
past Stoke!
After a long, arduous journey across the
barren wastelands of Birmingham and through several, previously undiscovered
counties, the group landed at Stevenage where they found a local hostelry with
staff that spoke a form of English and, more importantly for the chuckers,
trotters and driver, a bar! There was a little debate about room sharing, but a
lottery was held and a secret ballot before it was decided that Duncan Shaw
would have to ‘top and tail’ with Derek in the honeymoon suite – nice!
Next morning, after nibbles and mangetout,
the wheels on the bus went round and round to the Big Smoke and, thanks to some
brilliant navigating by Lucy “TomTom” Mansfield, the stadium appeared on the
horizon, and the team were greeted by the local missionary in the area, Eddie
Broome, looking a bit the worse for wear having just left a wedding in Kirkham
at 5.00 a.m. that morning!
First off the mark were
top chuckers Katie Holder (Javelin) and Duncan Shaw (Hammer) and, taking the club’s
first win, Declan O’Hara in Pole Vault. Then, over on the track, Eddie raced
through the hurdles to help with his recovery and Jack Scarr set a new record
for Middle Distance Triple Jump with a headband to show the way in team spirit
and support.
Ladies then took to the track with Katie
Holder keen to finish her afternoon early so that she could sunbathe and she
tackled the daunting hurdles in good time before Laura Deeganhyphenmountjoy
strode round the 800m, in spite of some unnecessary barracking from her team
mates. Laura was followed by Luke Minnsy who also ran a brilliant 800, (as is usual
for both these two). Now came the real test as Lucy Mansfield challenged
established international, Vicky Barr to a race over 400m. Vicky tried hard but
couldn’t stay with Lucy and anyway Lucy didn’t need a Sat Nav for the 400m!
Brent Starkie then stepped up to take
another well deserved victory and set a new PB and BWFAC record in the 400m, a delighted Brent was heard to say “I love this
For the 3k, Gemma Unsworth had to be
practically dragged away from the hammer cage, and although obviously annoyed,
she took first place to record another victory for the team. Who can tell what
Gemma’s best event is going to be? Moving away from the track for a while,
Stacey Manning was stunning in the Pole Vault – well at least her socks were –
and Louis Schofield put all that javelin practice into action where he suffered
a back problem totally unrelated to sharing sleeping quarters with Nick
Costello!
Nick also had an injury –what does that tell
you? – and, although he completed the 100m, he was in
some pain in the butt- sound familiar? This had a knock-on effect with headbanger Jack who then had to drop out of his 3K and
retire gracefully. Meanwhile, completing the Ladies individual events, young
Claudia Fiddler more than held her own against the (much) older girls in the
100m before joining Whippet, Tom-Tom and Stasia Bligh, just back from
international jet setting, in the medley relay.
For the Men, it needed that tremendous team
spirit for which BWF are famous as
Duncan, a thrower, Declan, a vaulter, Minnsy, from endurance and Brent took the
final challenge of the medley relay in good style finishing a very creditable 3rd.
In the final reckoning, the Ladies were 4th
and the Men 6th, a brilliant result given all the circumstances.
A couple of photos, some autographs for the
groupies and it was back on the trolleybus for a long trek back to
civilisation, stopping off only to enjoy(?) a quick pint in what seemed to be a
recently abandoned pub near the village of Nowhere. A good, but long trip in a
slow, but sure bus was ultimately good reward for a hard season in the top
flight, hopefully this sort of success will continue and the teams can look
forward to more ‘Grand Days Out’ like
these?
Congratulations to everyone who took part.
Your ‘Umble (but Proud) Manager
Derk
PS
What was that last I-Spy answer?