Report by Tom Gayle

Just like our footballing counterparts, the City of Stoke Athletics club went to Cardiff in search of promotion. Unlike Stoke City though, the Athletics clubs push for promotion will only be decided on the 31^st August at the fourth and final British Men’s League Division Three fixture at Sheffield. In the opening fixture with a largely depleted team the club showed glimpses of hope that create a strong argument that they will be able to emulate their footballing neighbours. Despite finishing fourth on a windy day in Cardiff the few that made it there all represented the potential that will go towards helping the club challenge for those much desired top two automatic promotion places out of the division.

Unlike recent years the club was unfortunately unable to reproduce the traditionally great start to the match. It had almost became the norm for the club to start off with maximum points due to victories from the likes of Craig Ellems, Peter Field and Chris Adams in the hammer. Unfortunately none of these train at the club anymore so it was left to David Brackstone to swap the trend to the opening track event, the 400m hurdles.

After deciding to turn out for his club and decline selection for the invitational 400m hurdles at the more glamorous Aqua Pura Loughborough International Meet, Dave produced a comfortably dominant win in 53.3. The manner in which he did this showed that he could be the front runner in leading the up and coming younger generation in the club that can only strengthen the senior team.

Dave later combined with Granville Field and Michael Bourne to take invaluable points in the short sprints. The trio amassed a total of 46 points from the possible 56. Field and Bourne took 3^rd and 2^nd in two highly competitive 100m races while later on Field followed Brackstones win in the A string 200m (beating the winner from the 100m A) with a close third in the B string despite running in the tight lane one.

The core of the team was again strongly held by the clubs ever present Decathlon squad who were all willing to test their variety of trades. The club would have definitely struggled on the day if it wasn’t for Steve Bonnett, Neil Fairlamb, Roger Skedd and Daniel Thompson covering the majority of the field events and wherever necessary on the track.

Thompson the youngest member of the team at just 17 followed Brackstone win in the 400 hurdles with a 3^rd in the B, just outside his best, then finished 4^th in the shorter hurdles and just minutes later was dragging himself around the 400m flat. After all this he still proclaimed that he was available for the 4x100m relay if necessary!

In the middle distance signs of previous years reared their ugly head as some of the clubs best runners were unfortunately unavailable. Those present performed well, the best coming from steeple chasers Steve Bazell and Robert Rhodes who took 4^th and 2^nd. Due to the shortage John Danahay had to complete a B string 1500m with a badly bruised toe and Steve Bazell chalked up some more mileage after his chase when doing the 5000m. Hopefully the likes of Lee Turner, Rob Whalley, Alex Wright, Ray Plant and Matt Jones will be available for the next fixture and show the great depth in distance runners available at the club.

In the field Dave Mountford showed that when everything clicks he has the ability to win this event as he was able to place third with a leap of 6.75 on his second attempt, but frustratingly this was the only jump he recorded as his five other attempts were no jumps.

In the high jump Mark Latham made a solid return back to club competition. Despite not finishing work until 3:30am he was able to travel to Cardiff off whatever sleep he managed to get and place 4^th with a jump of 1.85.

In the final two events the relays Stoke rallied to take 2^nd in the 4x100m, and then went onto win the 4x400m which meant that Stoke supporters were again chanting with glee in Cardiff as after being 3^rd off the opening leg by Steve Bonnett, Andy Prophett who was perhaps considered the weakest link in the team produce a gutsy run to come home 4^th but within a second of the leading three. This gave Granville Field more than enough of a chance to catch up, take the lead, and then pull away on leg 3. On the final Leg Brackstone completed a busy but highly successful day to bring an end to the days proceeding’s in the same manner which he had started them.

In the end Stoke placed 4^th in a close match were just 7 points separated 4^th to 7^th in the final team standings. This was a solid start but team manager Chris Brackstone knows that in order to fulfil the long overdue expectation of promotion a little more fine tuning, and hopefully an increase in athlete availability will help the club challenge division leaders Edinburgh and Sheffield at the next fixture on the 7^th July.

Full results from the meeting, as well as those from the other three divisions can be found at the British League website www.bal.org.uk