Despite the appalling weather conditions many of the Wallasey athletes produced exceptional performances in the annual Track and Field Championships.
The track events started in a blistering style when Mike Teahan won the half-mile with a fabulous time of 2:00.4. He led for most of the race and seemed completely undisturbed by the heavy rain.
The tragedy of the race was that when he crossed the line Mike was not totally exhausted and if he had known that he was going to fail breaking two minutes by a tantalising four-tenths of a second he could have drawn upon those last reserves of energy.
In the throwing events almost everybody threw short of his personal best, mainly because the concrete circles and implements were covered in rain.
The outstanding throw of the afternoon came from Mike Hampson when despite the adverse conditions he hurled the discus 125 feet 4 inches. This throw was four inches over the National Standard.
Many individual competitions developed between these runners as they tried to gather as many championship points as possible, but Ian Wilson emerged victor with a 34 feet 11 inch put.
Carl Gee won the senior shot convincingly with a 36 feet 9 inches throw.
The 440 was won by Mike Teahan in 53.2, a fast time for a wet grass track.
Mike Whiteside, who ran a very relaxed, controlled race, was second in 55.2 with Mike McNamee third.
The final times and placings were J. Jones 1st 4:43.0; D. Lockley 2nd 4:43.5; B. Smith 3rd 4:54.3.
When the championships points were added up the results were: Senior men. M. Teahan 2007 pts. 1st; B. Smith 1777 pts. 2nd; C. W. Gee 1562 pts, 3rd.
Junior men: M. Whiteside 1470 pts.: 1st; M. McNamee 1367 pts. 2nd; R. Tarrant 870 pts. 3rd.
Youths; D. Lockley 1726 pts. 1st; I. Wilson 1624 pts. 2nd; M. Hampson 1517 pts, 3rd. Senior boys; N. Tranfield 1132 pts. 1st; N. Hampson 678 pts. 2nd; M. Gee 160 pts. 3rd.
The women's events were heightened by the presence of Wallasey's two county champions Hilary Owen and Angela James.
A fortnight ago Hilary proved herself the fastest intermediate schoolgirl in Cheshire when she took the county 100 yards title. She has since been picked to run for Cheshire at the English Schools Athletic Championships at Blackburn next week.
Angela James took the county discus title with a tremendous 96 feet 7 ½ inches throw; although Angela's throw was 7 ½ inches over the qualifying standard for the English Schools she was, unfortunately, not included in the county team.
Hilary Owen won the 100 yards, 220 yards and long jump at the Club championships and easily won the overall competition. In the girls' 100 yards Hilary won in 12.1 secs, Yvonne Broomhead was 2nd in 12.7 secs. and Angela James was 3rd in 12.7 secs. The girls' 220 was won in 27.7 with Yvonne Broomhead 2nd in 30.0 and Dave Lockley's sister, Linda, 3rd in 32.0.
Barbara Banks won the 440 in 72.4 when she jointly beat Linda Lockley at the finish. Barbara ran a well-judged race and hung back until the last 110 yards, when she put in a finishing spurt which brought her to the front.
In the long jump the run up was very wet and take off board had to have sand packed down in front of it to bring it to the level of the ground. Both these factors produced some violent variations in the length of run up and most of the ladies were far below their potential.
The event was won (yet again!) by Hilary Owen with 14 feet 4 inches; Linda Lockley, despite two no jumps, was second with 13 feet 8 inches; and Susan Elliot who improved every jump, as she adjusted her run-up, was third with 13 feet 7inches. Sue also won the shot with 26 feet 7 inches.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 02/07/1966
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