Last Saturday's Cheshire athletic championships held Winnington Park, Northwich, should have provided a cut and thrust competition for a host of the county's athletes but, instead only a handful of competitors contested the 48 events on the programme.
The reason for this apathetic approach to what could be the best meeting in Cheshire lies partly with the senior club members who seem to fight shy of all the championship events, and in part with the schools' associations, who seem to clash with the county on dates, almost annually.
This year both the Wallasey and Wirral schools held their championships on the same day as the Cheshire A.A.A,'s, with the resulting low attendance figures at the County meeting.
Those who did make the journey from Wallasey to Winnington Park were rewarded with a good afternoon's sport.
Yvonne Broomhead came 5th in the junior girls' 100 yards final in 11.9 secs., after winning her heat in 12.3 and running second in her semi-final in 12.5 seconds.
Ann Ward, in the intermediate girls' 100 yards was 4th in the final (11.9) after being 2nd in her heat with 12.0 secs. John Watkins did 10.3 secs. in both his heat and final to take 3rd and 5th places respectively.
Dave Lockley showed that he still lacks pace judgement when running in the youths' mile; he led for three of the four laps before being passed by M. Davies (Manchester) on the last lap and finished 20 yards behind the winner in 4 mins. 47.3 secs. In the junior mile Barrie Smith allowed the leaders to get way on the third lap and finished 5th in 4 mins. 47.0 secs. Mike Teahan had a busy afternoon, competing in the senior high jump, long jump, 100 yards, 440 yards and 440 yards hurdles. From these five events he gained only one medal, a bronze in the 440 yards, which he ran in 54.1 secs., and only time can measure the experience he gained at this meeting.
Tuesday night's Liverpool Parks inter-club meeting held at Wavertree, proved a repeat performance for Wallasey A.C., finishing 3rd among the eight clubs taking part but scoring 19 points more than last years meeting. On a soft track the times were understandably slow but the competition nonetheless keen, and Hilary Owen and Yvonne Broomhead gained 4th and 5th places in the ladies final to score Wallasey's first points of the evening.
This was followed by a second place in the high jump for both Anne Sheridan and Ray Ellis who jumped 4ft. 3ins. and 5ft. respectively, whilst Don Wootton was placed 3rd in the shot (36ft. 8ins.) in his first meeting for the club.
In the youths' mile Dave Lockley was 3rd in 4.46.5. with John Jones close behind in 5th position, and Barrie Smith repeated this placing in the senior event, with Kevin Mather in 7th place.
The senior sprinters had a good evening altogether, John Morley took 2nd place in the 100 yards (11.0 secs.) and John
Watkins was 4th in 11.1 secs., then these two combined with Mike Teahan and Robin Tarrant to take 2nd place in the relay behind Liverpool Harriers, which was one place higher than the girls, who were 3rd to Wirral A.C. and Liverpool in a closely-fought event.
Perhaps the best race of the evening was the senior 3 miles in which Wallasey's experienced Ron Barlow held off a strong challlenge from Sutton's McLoughlin to win by 3 yards in 14 mins. 10.4 secs., with a nearly fit Brian Woolford in 6th place. The final scores were: Liverpool 96 pts., Wirral 75, and Wallasey 57, followed by Waterloo,
Liverpool Pembroke, Sefton, Sutton, and Morrison A.C.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 05/06/1965 by DISCOBOLUS
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