On Sunday, June 17, Wallasey Athletic Club competed in the second round of the Northern men's track and field league, held at Warrington.
Despite some good individual performances, the team finished in a disappointing sixth place, and so will not be among the promotion contenders in the final round.
Bob Brimage may have suffered from doing too many events, as his 3,000 metre steeplechase time of 10 min 31 sec was slower than normal, but had been preceded by a third in the 'B' 400 metre hurdles.
Dave Pendleton, on the other and seemed oblivious to the fact he was doing six events, as he continued to produce personal bests throughout the afternoon.
The most impressive among these were 2.02.2 for 800 metres, and 54.5 for 400 metres both of which showed substantial improvement on his previous times.
Andy Skinner, who the previous weekend had run 56 minutes for 10 miles produced his best track performance to date, in reducing his 5,000 metre personal best to 15 minutes 58 seconds. Andy ran a very positive race in attempting to stay with the leading group, and appeared to benefit from doing so.
Club captain Alan Johnson competed in seven events including 4th 'A' in the long jump, 5th 'A' in the hammer and the 110 metre hurdles, and good legs in the 4 x 100 metres and 4 x 400 metres relays.
Pete Smith scored valuable points in the field event finishing 1st 'B' in both the pole vault and long lump. The outstanding performance in the pole vault, however, was the personal best 2.40 metre, cleared by Chris Lees. Chris showed commendable versatility as he also ran 12.2 seconds for 100 metres, and cleared 11.07 metres in the triple jump.
Competing in the London Marathon a few weeks earlier Sue Knight (who was seen on television), ran a personal best of 3 hours 50 minutes. After impressive runs in two local half marathons, Sue looked set for some improvement, but the 30 minutes she knocked off her old time was an outstanding performance.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 23/06/1984 by J. Downey
Ref 1995