• Press Report 12th October 2009

    Athletes from Ilford AC kicked off their Cross Country season on a busy weekend of County Action. Saturday saw 12 senior athletes and 4 juniors from the club competing on a tough and demanding course at Thurrock's One Tree Hill in the first round of the Essex Cross Country League. The heavy rain of the previous week laying on top of some very hard ground made conditions slippery leading to many a spill as runners also struggled with some very long hills.
    Ilford men finished in 10th spot led home by a good run from Darren Bottrill who finished in 41st place. Captain Neil Crisp followed him home in 54th with Terry Knightley 65th Andy Catton 84th, Chris Togwell 105th and Gary Floate 111th completing the scoring. Club stalwart Tony Nixon made a welcome return to action after a considerable lay-off and after a sprightly start found the 2nd lap tough going finishing in 125th position.
    The Ladies squad battled well to finish 11th with Mel Jones 34th coming through to get the better of Bree Nordin 44th in the latter stages. Nicola Hopkinson 54th and Sally Gillam 56th completed the scoring quartet. Meredith Floate did exceptionally well in her first cross country outing to finish 84th.
    In the junior races both Laura Swords and Tom King sustained falls but picked themselves up to finish 26th and 41st in the U15 girls and U15 boys respectively. Alex Richards ran strongly in the U17 men to finish an excellent 14th with Omar Rashid 33rd in the same race.
     
    The following day Terry Knightley and Breege Nordin were back in action in the Tiptree 10 miles which also doubled as the County championships. Knightley found the roads much more to his liking clocking 61.52 to finish 19th overall. Nordin led the women's squad home in 75.18 to record 145th place overall.
    They were joined by Kevin Newell who clocked 62.18 for 22nd,  Steve Parker 68.50 (65th) and an unwell Iain Macdonald jogeed round in 84.29 for 263rd. The evergreen Pam Jones was top V65 of the day with 85.14.
     
    Elsewhere Robin and Nikki McNelis were in action in the Capital in The Royal Parks Half Marathon. Robin's time was 1.21.33 with Nikki recording 1.50.45.