A much depleted Wallasey team travelled to Leyland, near Preston, last Saturday for the West Lancashire Cross-Country Championships.
Early in the cross-country season, hopes had been high that Wallasey would shine in the senior event, but injuries and illness had combined to ensure that such hopes would not be realised. The club only managed to produce a complete team because John Howard, still only a junior, volunteered to run in the 9 mile senior event although he had been training for only a few weeks.
At the start Geoff North (Blackpool) took the lead from Brian Craig (Blackpool), two international runners, and the main interest in the race from then on was to see if North, running in his first senior season, could beat the greatly experienced Craig.
Many spectators thought that Craig had the race in his pocket by the end of the second lap, but Geoff North had other ideas and he stayed level with Craig until they reached the point where the first of the big laps joined the smaller one. The ground was much heavier at this point but North made a decisive effort and dropped Craig by five yards, a gap which the latter could only watch helplessly, as it grew to ten and then twenty yards in less than a quarter of a mile as North used his strength on the short steep hill that went up from the stream. After an interval of thirty seconds Brian Woolford came past with an almost equal Interval of time between himself and the fourth runner Woods of Blackpool. John Wright had moved into 8th position on this lap but decided to retire at the end of the lap as he did not feel strong enough to continue. Kevin Mather also dropped back gradually but Brian Chalton ran extremely well and looked more like the runner of last season, when few juniors could hold him.
North increased his lead over Craig and the whole field on the last lap and came home a clear winner in 46 mins. 46 secs, followed by Craig (47 mins. 02 secs.) and Brian Woolford. Woolford most certainly ran his best race to date for he beat Warriner (Pembroke) the Liverpool & District champion by half a minute in 48 mins. 6 secs. K Mather was 18th and B Chalton 49th.
Peter Meldrum finished 13th and David Martin 22nd. With more training behind him the latter could do very well. Today the club travels to St. Asaph for the St. Asaph to Rhyl road race in which teams of three score.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 10/02/1962 by P.W.C.
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