A tremendous all round team performance produced a convincing win at Telford and moved us up into second place in the league. Paul Williams was once again in superb form winning both the 200 metres and Long Jump. Coached by Keith Fradley, Paul is one of the top M40 sprinters in the UK. Mick Warrilow showed that age is no barrier running a season’s best to finish second in the M40 ‘B’ 200m.

Alan Burt and John Danahay offered to ‘jog’ the 800m for the points but maybe not surprisingly John’s ‘jog’ won his race by a clear 10 seconds. Richard Barrington and Dick Kneill were both recovering from injuries but put in fine displays to finish third in the M50 and M60 800m respectively.

Phil Bailey and Dave Hindley get better with every race walk. Dave managed to knock 60 seconds off last year’s best performance. Phil finished second and Dave fourth to earn valuable points for the team. John Danahay, Alan Burt and Ray Ibbs again ran extremely well in the 3000m. John ran an excellent race but was just out sprinted to the finish line. Alan knocked 53 seconds and Ray 36 seconds off last year’s best performance.

Morris Fox made his long awaited debut and comfortably won the M40 Discus with a throw of 40.13m. It was good to see Merv Richards competing again and despite his injury, he won the Shot Put with a throw of 10.47m.

Brian Eggleton competed in his least favourite event the M60 Long Jump and finished a credible fifth position. It is always good to round the night off with a win and the 4x100m relay team did it in style. Morris blasted away from the start handing over to Mick who increased our lead. Richard (injured?) ran a superb final bend to hand over to Paul to win comfortably in 49.3 seconds.

Stoke had 13 athletes turn out on the night. We filled every event but more importantly it was good to see everyone enjoying the competition. The next meeting is at Tamworth on Wednesday 7^th July where we need to have a full turn out again. I hope to see you all there.

Peter Wainwright

Stoke Results

200m M40A 1^st Paul Williams                   24.0
200m M40B 2^nd Mick Warrilow M50          26.9

800m M40A 5^th Alan Burt                        2.31.4
800m M40B 1^st John Danahay                 2.19.2
800m M50A 3^rd Richard Barrington          2.40.6
800m M60A 3^rd Dick Kneill                     2.53.0
800m M60 Guest Dave Hindley                3.28.8

2k Walk M40A 4^th Dave Hindley M60       13.54.7

2k Walk M50A 2^nd Phil Bailey                 13.37.0

3000m M40A 2^nd John Danahay               9.38.2
3000m M40B 4^th Alan Burt                      11.15.6
3000m M50A 2^nd Ray Ibbs                      10.37.8

Pole Vault M50A 2^nd Peter Wainwright       2.10

Discus M40A 1^st Morris Fox                     40.13
Discus M40 Guest Merv Richards              30.46

Javelin M50A 1^st Peter Wainwright            37.50

Long Jump M40A 1^st Paul Williams            5.36
Long Jump M40 Guest Morris Fox              5.27
Long Jump M50 Guest Mick Warrilow         4.72
Long Jump M60A 5^th Brian Eggleton           2.78

Shot M40A 1^st Merv Richards                    10.47
Shot M40 Guest Morris Fox                      12.70

4x100m Relay 1^st Fox, Warrilow, Barrington, Williams 49.30

Meeting Results                     Overall Positions

1^st Stoke         139                  RSC              17         231
2^nd RSC           113                  Stoke            15.5      227
3^rd Telford         105                  W & B           12.5      176
4^th W & B          88                   Tamworth       11         151
5^th C & S           78                   Telford           10         177
6^th Burton          68                    C & S             9         158
7^th Tamworth     62                    Burton             9         152
8^th Shrewsbury  18                    Shrewsbury     4          59