Ding - dong! Belles move up the UKWAL league table

UKWAL Match 2, Bedford

With a much stronger team for this second match, and the only blank event on the team sheet being the pole vault, the Belgrave team were well placed from the very start of the meeting when Jodie Albrow thought she'd smashed her best ever 400 hurdles time (only to find that the electric timing had malfunctioned). Jodie placed 3rd in the EA Heptathlon Champs a few days ago.

A double win came from Tish Jones in the 3000m and 1500m. In the longer race she had a battle royal with Bedford's Jo Wilkinson before breaking away with a powerful surge towards the end. That strong finish came in handy again for the 1500 metres where she was a full 15 metres down on Bedford's Rebecca Murray at the bell, caught her with around 200m to go, and opened up a five second gap by the time the finish line was reached. In both races Mel Wilkins took second in the B race; it was her first appearance in the UKWAL team and she was delighted to be part of a T&F team that she barely knew existed.

It was great, also, to welcome new members Mairead Deevy and Leanne Bettis into the team. Mairead ran in both sprints and both relays while Leanne was in discus and shot action.

All the normal favourites were there as well of course and at the end of the meeting we were in third team place which moves us up to 5th in the league on the same league points as Exeter in 3rd spot. The team is now virtually guaranteed a continuing presence in UKWAL Division Three for 2015 but maybe we can move up further in match three at Liverpool on 6 July.

It was a happy team manager Bob Bridges who drove the minibus back to London.

100m: 6 M Deevy 13.38/-1.7; 2 S Dike U20 13.33/0.4. 200m:5 N Anderson 26.91/-0.9; 4 M Deevy 27.15/-1.6. 400m: 6 N Anderson 59.04; 4 R O'Brien 62.09. 800m: 6 F Maddocks 2:29.01; 6 M Noel W50 2:58.73. 1500m: 1 T Jones 4:35.21; 2 M Wilkins 5:09.70. 3000m: 1 T Jones 9:54.40; 2 M Wilkins 11:01.24. 100mH: 2 J Albrow 15.22/-1.6; 2 J Case 18.69/-1.0. 400mH: 1 J Albrow 63.60; 4 J Case 74.83. 2000mSC: 4 H Brown 9:59.53. HJ: 6 R O'Brien 1.25; 4 R Basford 1.25. LJ: 6 E Watkins 4.40; 5 S Dike 4.12. TJ: 5 E Watkins 8.80; 4 H Brown 8.03. PV: no competitor. SP: 4 R Basford 9.33; 4 L Bettis 7.00. DT: 3 L Bettis 30.04; 5 H Mead 14.41. JT: 5 J Albrow 32.57; 7 H Mead 13.40. HT: 3 R Basford 34.61; 3 H Mead 24.38. 4x100m: 3 Belgrave 51.15 (S Dike, R O'Brien, J Albrow, M Deevy). 4x400m: 5 Belgrave 4:10.38 (R O'Brien, M Deevy, J Case, J Albrow).Teams: 1 Bedford &C AC 213; 2 Harrow AC 209; 3 Belgrave H 189; 4 Herts Phoenix AC 183; 5 Exeter H 182; 6 Leeds City AC 168; 7 City of Liverpool 146.League positions after two matches: 1 Bedford &C AC 16 (431); 2 Harrow AC 14 (420.5); 3 Exeter H 9 (366) 4 Herts Phoenix AC 9 (355) 5 Belgrave H 9 (344.5); 6 City of Liverpool 8 (334); 7 Leeds City AC 5 (311).