Report on the 3rd British Athletics League meeting of 2007
at Abingdon Stadium 7th July

Some of the BAL team at the Southampton meeting

Despite fielding a weakened Team, Basingstoke & Mid Hants AC Senior Men increased their lead to 5 Points at the top of the BAL Division 3 after finishing third of the eight Clubs competing at Abingdon. This was Basingstoke’s home match held in Oxfordshire because Down Grange does not have eight lanes. With Ben Hazell and Deane Showler-Davis representing Great Britain in Poland and with a number of other athletes not available, or injured Basingstoke fielded a young Team but were still confident of a good result.

The sprints looked a good bet for a double and started with Ben Ellis and Andy Blow scoring wins in the 100m, both athletes recording 10.7s. However the 200m proved a disaster for Ben as 20m from the line in the lead he pulled a hamstring and limped over the line in 5th place.
Andy Blow responded by taking the B string in 21.7s but Ellis’s injury put a damper on the match. In the 400m Jon Elderfield did well to take 2nd in 49.8s while Dave Ragan was also 2nd in the B string with 50.6s.

On the field Simon Williams scored a useful win the Discus with 43.01m and also scored well in the Shot taking 4th with 12.96m and 5th in the Hammer recording 39.34m. This time he had three different partners, John Dickinson in the Discus scoring 3rd  in the B string with 36.49m, Tony Higbee in the B Shot who also took 3rd also with 12.79m and Chris Berry in the B Hammer who placed 5th with 22.96m. It was a day of misfortune for Dickinson for after clearing his opening height in the Pole Vault  he hurt his hand on landing and could not continue so finishing 6th in the B event with 2.50m, prior to that he had jumped 6.59m for 6th in the A Long Jump.  Higbee also nursing an injury did mange the 110m Hurdles finishing 4th in 15.3s. Carl Marchment had a good day with 2nd in the B 400m Hurdles in 63.2s, 4th in the A Triple Jump recording a 12.89m jump and finally finishing 3rd in the B Javelin with 42.24m. While Elderfield was 3rd in the B Triple Jump recording 12.55m

The younger members of the Team all performed well. In the 800m Duncan Stevenson recorded a personal best of 1m59.6s for 6th in the B event. While Tom Fright was 2nd in the B 110m Hurdles in 15.9s and 3rd in the B Long Jump with 6.02m. Jack Bolton placed 4th in the A High Jump going over 1.80m and doubled in the A Javelin placing 7th with 44.26m.
Robbie Kite concentrated on the Pole Vault where he finished 6th with 3.40. and youngest member of the Team Sam Sleap won the B High Jump with 1.80m.

Back on the track David Fry continued his fine form with 2nd in the A 3000m Steeplechase in 9m50.7s despite clouting one of the barriers hard with his knee and limping over the line. Steve Turville doubled in the 800m and 5000m, placing 5th in A 800m with 1m56.7s and 4th in the A 5000m with 15m47.4s. In the A 1500m John Hutchins came home 4th in 4m01.7s while Tom Graham was 7th in the B string with 4m19.6s. Another to record a Personal Best was Nick Bates in the 400m Hurdles, Nick hurdling strongly for 4th in 57.9s.

The two Relays saw contrasting performances with the 4x100m being a disaster as the Team failed to get the baton round while 4x400m quartet scored another convincing win recording 3m17.2s some 6secs clear of their rivals. On another day Basingstoke could have been winners again with the number of injuries they encountered but in the end they had to settle for third.

The final scores being 1st Notts AC 344pts, 2nd Kingston & Poly AC 327,
3rd Basingstoke & Mid Hants AC 305, 4th Crawley AC 272, 5th Medway & Maidstone  AC 267, 6th City of Stoke AC 262, 7th Team Southampton 234, 8th Rugby & Northampton 170.

This means Basingstoke need to be no lower than 5th in the last match at Derby on the 4th August to win the Division 3 title and gain promotion.

Click to see full results here

Match report by Ian Byett