Alright on the Night

Goodness, what a day.  The construction of a telling Surrey League squad has never been for the faint-hearted, and right up until the gun, the chopping and changing of our line-up was ongoing.  But finally we served up 13 men good and true to withstand the barrage of 70 athletes from Guildford and Reigate, our rivals for promotion.The TM’s journey to the venue was a fiasco.  Three pick-ups to make along the way – and I only achieved one of them!  Mr Clark couldn’t make it to Raynes Park due to a signal failure, and Andrius’ pick-up in an awkward little corner of Kingston was going to take at least half-an-hour more than anticipated due to traffic snarl-ups… and I had the numbers, and valuable cargo in Zek.  Another one gone, and then messrs Bundle and Maddams also wrote in to offer their regrets.  We were four big guns lighter in the space of 20 minutes, horrific stuff, and I started to eye up my own garb as my competitive days draw to a close… no vest, no shorts, no spikes; but maybe needed now.But then everything came together again.  Bels started trickling to the venue and we got a couple of nice surprises.  1983 skipper Don Anderson bolstered our foundations and the abandoned Andrius had gotten his neighbour [a cabbie] to put in a very swift dash up the A3.  What spirit.A minute’s silence preceded the gun for the two young Aldershot runners Lucy Pygott and Stacey Burrows who lost their lives at training on Tuesday night after being struck by a car.  So desperately sad, and a reminder that the running community is all part of one big family and clubs up and down the land have felt the loss deeply.The start was a mad downhill dash complete with sharp right-hand turn, before a long mile+ uphill drag followed.  The course was barely ever flat and one was sometimes joined by cantering horses loving the action.  Toward the end of the first loop, Andrius was in a great battle for the win – no swing there then on his decision to cab it!  And it soon became clear that the rest of the team was not messing around as the next eight runners came within the top 40.  We needed one more though and turned to a key man from the 1993-94 promotion push Phil Carstairs, who swept newcomer Scott Mills into his sack toward the end of the first lap.AJ narrowly lost out to a fine run from Kingston’s Evans, and then there was another great run from Ed Auden who had 4th in his grasp at the final sharp turn, but his wheels failed to grip and a spectacular wipe-out ensued.  Nick Buckle is a fine tactician and his mid-teens run had suddenly become 8^th.  Our engine room then started flying in with strong league debuts from Arne Dumez and Alex Mills to become the 355^th and 356^th league scorers in our history, and the efforts of the two Matts, Zek and ever-reliable Tom meant that we could actually win the race.  But where was Phil to settle our account?  There he was – no worries – to draw level with the great Lionel Mann for League scores [34].Considering we were missing six of our top 8 scorers from Wimbledon, an outstanding effort from the lads.  We have to sing for our supper one more time as this wasn’t a knock-out punch, but both Guildford and Reigate also struggled a little here, so the win was duly ours which was very satisfying considering how stretched we were. 1 S Evans (K&P) 28:18; 2 A Jaksevicius 28:32; 5 E Auden 29:19; 8 N Buckle 30:22; 14 A Dumez 30:36; 23 M Taylor 31:28; 26 M Welsh 31:51; 29 Z Abery 31:56; 35 A Mills 32:17; 39 T O’Beirne 32:42; 92 P Carstairs 36:33; 110 A Luce 37:59; 119 S Mills 38:24; 148 D Anderson 44:42.  155 finished.1 Belgrave H 261; 2 Guildford & G 283; 3 Reigate 284; 4 Croydon 381; 5 Walton 532.Overall:  1 Bel 400; 2 G&G 491; 3 Reig 529.