A Fantastic February for the Worksop Harriers
We leave February with two brilliant success stories for both our junior and senior harriers with both bringing home the silverware for the club!
On Sunday 18th Feb the final Notts Sports Hall Match took place in Kirky in Ashfield. A superb end to the series of this indoor competition which sees from U11 to U15 boys and girls compete in a series of run jumps and throws before finishing with the team relay race. A fantastic team turnout and some great performances saw Isaac Beresford take the boys Athlete of the match. In the U11 girls Aya St Juste and Eliza De Villers took multiple 1st and 2nd places including wins in the balance test whilst in the boys Isaac Beresford took wins in the lap races and stepper with George North also making a strong points contribution. Up one age group to U13 and Emilia Jonczyk, Holly Bulmer, Heidi Marks and Henry Marks all made strong team points contributions. Finally on to the top age group of U15 and great work from Olivia Wright, Cheryl Greaves as well as a win for Miley Townrow in the 4-lap race crowned out U15 girls the overall on-the-day winners for score. That wasn’t us done for the day though as the U15 boys also put in a great display with Travis Revell and Freddie Marks taking multiple 1sts between them including the speed bounce and Standing Triple Jump
It wasn’t just a great day for the young athletes but consistent performances over the series saw our Junior Harriers take the overall series win, marking 10 years since last achieving this in 2014.
Sticking with the theme of 10-year anniversaries, Sunday 25th February marked the final match in the local inter-club XC series and 10 years since WHAC joined, to make a league comprised of Worksop Harriers & AC, Retford Athletic Club, Clowne Road Runners, Handsworth Roadhogs and Killamarsh Kestrels, The Worksop Harriers Men’s team have secured the Men’s competition at our home match, completing a turn-around from 2-0 down after two matches to finish 3-2 winners in the series. After what has been a season of some very wet and challenging conditions of each clubs courses, the Manton Pit Top Course provided a fantastic backdrop for the finale with cool, sunny and surprisingly dry conditions making for some very runnable conditions. A 1.5 lap course with a quick first two mile before runners have to dig for some challenging climbs in the second half, finishing off with a very literal climb up and out just under a mile from the finish before a fast blast back to the start finish, it was a trio of Nick Moore, Tom Shaw and Dom Fielding who made sure the green and black led the race from start to finish. Great competition and inter-club competition mean it wasn’t until the ascent on to the pit top that a gap started to appear for the front as Dom Fielding took a 3rd individual win for the series, 4 from 5 races for the Harriers and another 1-2 with Tom Shaw. It didn’t take long for more green and black to flood the finish line as Nick Moore hung in their for 4th, a cracking series finale for Matt Daly (6th), Adam Turner making 5 Harriers in the top-10 (9th) with Aidy Hopkinson and Paul Marriot (12th and 16th) finishing off a strong scoring-7! A great day for the men as the numbers were out in force with a total of 28 men making it the best attendance to date, giving a final on the day score of just 40 points for the lowest of any team of the series, and helping to secure the winners Shield!
Looking to make it a success on both sides of the teams, our ladies were out in force looking for a strong finish as Hannah Miller made it a second win in a row to make it a Harriers double to finish the series as she was back by Sam Marriott (22nd), a huge one week improvement from Madi Spencer (25th) and Nat Cunningham (26th) and a tight finishing group of Sally Hamer, Julie Holloway and Cathy Mhembere (30th, 31st and 33rd). A fantastic team ethic and willingness saw us once again hit the maximum attendance boost with 20 women all competing and also makes this the best attended series by the Harriers as every single event has seen full teams on both the men and womens side with everyone making a contribution from the scoring 7 to the bonus runner points and ensuring there are cheering green and black from front to back of the pack! Our ladies finished 3rd overall on the day as well as 3rd overall in the series, with the overall competition being another close three way battle between ourselves, Retford and Clowne. With a season best of 2nd our ladies have shown they can push themselves higher up the tables as well as we will look to build on 2024 successes and come back even stronger next year with an ever improving team!
Whilst we have enjoyed visiting all four clubs over the past two months it was of course our turn to host for the final and its difficult to offer enough thanks to the chief organisers Richard and Gemma Hind, supported by the wealth of experience offered by Peter Fendley to make all the behind the scenes work go off with minimal fuss and to full effect. Richard and Gemma were supported by ever an excellent and enthusiastic bunch Worksop Harriers +Family & Friends volunteers on the day, plenty of Harriers expertise baking to provide a top notch post-race buffet for 200+ hungry runners and volunteers and a special thanks goes to Greencore for a very kind donation to their local club to help the aforementioned!
The Men’s competition was of course won by Worksop with a final score of 7 points. The Ladies competition was won by Retford with a final score 6 points whilst the combined competition was won by Clowne with a score of 19 points. Well done to all runners who have taken part in this popular local series, a huge thank you to all those who organised, catered and marshalled at all five venues and we’re already excited for the 2025 compeition!
