The youths' section of Wallasey Athletic Club showed once again that they have no equal on Merseyside when they swept their way to an easy team win in last Saturday's second league race at Sherdley Park, St. Helens.
Although without the redoubtable Mel Schless (off with a cold), Wallasey packed their team into 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 7th places to give them only 17 points, with Sutton A.C. next team with 45 points and the rest nowhere.
Even non-counters Phil Wealthy and John Horobin ran into 11th and 12th places (of the 22 finishers), but Dave Lockley 2nd, Johnny Jones 3rd, Steve Walker 5th and Brian Knox 7th had already 'sewn it up' at the front.
The boys' team had hard luck when they equalled Wirral's score of 31 points for first place, but Wirral's last counter was in 12th place to Wallasey's 13th (Phil Keating) and so they were placed ahead on a technicality.
For Wallasey, John Rogers came from down the field to take 3rd place just in front of Bob Brimage, who was 4th, one second behind.
Paul Hughes was 11th, and although young Keating scored as 4th counter he is still in fact a colt, as is Steve Daniels, who was 17th out of the 20 finishing out of the leading half-dozen runners throughout the race.
Ron Barlow showed continued signs of improvement in the senior six miles event when he was placed 3rd from a field of nearly 100 starters and was never? Brian Woolford 11th and Barrie Smith 13th gave good support, but Len Durkin in 50th place was next man up and no team can afford such a gap, with the result that Wallasey closed into 5th place with 198 points, behind Wirral at 82 points, Pembroke (113), Sutton (132) and Liverpool (163), Sefton (250) followed Wallasey, with Warrington on 281 and Boundary a massive 438 well to the rear.
Today's races take place from the Wirral Club's headquarters at Woodchurch, Birkenhead with the senior event now in the form of a relay of four runners each, covering a three-mile circuit of hilly country.
Wallasey's' 'A' team will be R. Barlow, B. Smith, B. Woolford and J. Wright. This quartet won the event in 1965 but will be hard pressed to take one of the first three places today with strong teams entered from Sutton, Blackpool, Liverpool, Barrow and Wirral A.C.
The 'B' team will be selected from K. Rosso, D. Hanna, A. Keating, M. Teahan, L. Durkin and C. Gee, whilst the youths have a straight race over a three-mile course.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 02/12/1967
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