Press Report 8th October 2024  

Essex Cross Country League
Hainault Forest
Saturday 5th October 2024

The 2024/25 cross country season started on a sunny afternoon at Hainault Forest over Ilford’s usual tough course which featured a couple of muddy sections.

Ilford AC had a good turnout of 13 young athletes and twenty Seniors for the first league fixture.
For the youngsters, this was a big step for many of them to a higher level of racing and they all acquitted themselves well.

Competing in the league for the first time in the U11 race over 1.5km was Danilo Reina and Joshua Denning. Both boys ran strongly on a difficult course, Danilo finished 17th and Joshua 25th.

We had six athletes in the under 13s race over 3km.
The girls all stayed in sight of each other throughout the race and showed grit and determination. Iris Wan was a brilliant 20th, Drissialemoy Majen-Akande 22nd and Alicia Adams 24th. The boys raced at the same time with Khalif Ali just getting in the top ten in 9th, Elias Furreedan in 38th and Daniel Guiba 41st.

The Under 15 race was probably the most competitive race of the whole day. They also had the pleasure of the hard hills which the seniors would race later. Hawaa Patel came a promising 31st in the girl’s race and Barney Perkins (37th) and Ethan Guiba (54th) acquitted themselves well for the boys.

Finally, for the juniors we had Samuel Crane and Ryder Islam in the u17s, running over a 7km course. Ryder had a breakthrough performance coming 16th in a good class field, Samuel had a good season opener in 13th.

Leading the way for Ilford Senior Ladies in their race over around 7 km was Jordan Hinds in 24th place in 25 mins 12 secs with support coming from Alison Sale in 25th with 28 mins 37 secs and Bree Nordin recording 29 mins 59 secs for 71st. Pauline Tester came home 78th in 37 mins 03 specs.
Julia Galea completed the squad in 113th in 37 mins 03 secs.
The team compete in Division 2 this season and won the match.

The senior men raced over a course of about 8 km and Ilford were led home by newcomer to the team Manuel Caeiro Vigo in 37th place in 30 mins 34 secs with Steve Philcox 51st and 1st in the M55 category,
Next over the line in 31 mins 12 secs and Malcolm Muir 61st with 31 mins 45 secs. Seb Parris put in a steady run for 87th and 33 mins 25 secs with Dan Holeyman 96th with 33 mins 49 secs .
Joel Denning completed the scorers in 111th spot in a time of 34 mins 43 secs.
The Ilford men compete in Division 1 of the league and placed 9th in the match
Andy Catton placed first in the M70 grouping with a time of 41:53

Also running for Ilford in this race were::  Steve Chissell (122nd  35.49) Terry Knightley (153rd  37.31)  Bradley Brown (156th  37.50)  Mike Perkins (160th  37.01)  Alan Pearl (161  38.08)   Tony Young (195th  42.19)  Jim Tilbrook (196th  42.27) and Rob Sargent (229  52.42)  

Eastern A.A Inter-County 10k
Cambridge

This year’s winner of the Inter counties match were Essex, who included Ilford’s Jack Nixon, who finished himself in Second place to add a Silver medal to his Gold,  in a new Personal best time of 30 mins 38 seconds.