• Press Report 26th January 2009

    Ilford Athletic Club were represented by 11 athletes at the South of England Cross Country Championships at Uxbridge on Saturday. The men negotiated 9 miles spread over 4 laps of an essentially flat yet extremely muddy quagmire of a course around the fields and rugby pitches adjacent to Hillingdon House Farm. Malcolm Muir in 65th place led home a scoring squad comprising Jamie Nunn 176th, Neil Crisp 277th, Matt Maple 354th,  Ben Jones 380th and Chris Togwell 382nd. This placed the men's team halfway in 26th position out of 52 competing teams. Muir was very happy with his performance afterwards, coming home as the 5th man in the County and defeating arch rival Ryan Prout in the process. The race was won by Phil Wicks of Belgrave Harriers with Winchester and District taking the team title.
    The women were grateful they only had to go 5 miles over similar terrain of  2 small and 2 large loops. Mel Jones 165th got the better of a below par Bree Nordin 182nd, with Dianne Crisp 185th, Nicola Hopkinson 225th  and Victoria Morgan 253rd supporting well and placed the Ilford squad 31st out of 38 teams. Local girls Katherine Sparke, Woodford Green, and Faye Fullerton, Havering Mayesbrook, occupied the top 2 positions with Fullerton leading the Havering squad to a fine team bronze. Aldershot Farnham and District took the women's team title.
     
    Earlier in the day Ilford's Thomas King built on his performance of the previous week  when competing against older boys in the Essex Schools Cross Country Championships at Basildon. Running that day in the junior boys race the under 13 year old had put up a creditable performance to finish 56th out of 74 runners. Still against some stiff opposition this time King managed 153rd out of 244 athletes.
     
    On Sunday Abdi Berleen was the only Ilford runner in the notoriously tough Benfleet 15 multi terrain race where he finished 94th in a time of 1hr 57mins 56 secs. The title once again went to perennial winner Crispian Bloomfield of Billericay Striders with Clare Thurgood of Orion taking the women's prize.