Places, etc as promised!

Looking through the results of the Scottish Cross Country Championships, there was a lot of interesting - if disappointing - facts in the results. For instance, although it does not look good for us to have no teams in the Under 13 Boys or Girls, Under 15 Boys and Girls, Under 17 Boys and Girls or Under 20 Men or Women, the overall figures for local clubs are comparable. We did at least have runners in the U13 and U15 Girls and U 20 Men where West Dunbarton did not have a single runner in any race at all. Counting local clubs as West Dunbarton, Garscube, Helensburgh and Victoria Park a look at the results reveals the following. Only two local clubs finished teams in the Senior Men's race - we were twentieth with 1154 points and Garscube were twenty seventh with 1583. Clydesdale Harriers was the top local team in the Senior Men's race! Had Kath Scott not had to drop out we would have had a team in the Senior Women's race as it was though, there were three clubs with finishing teams.

There were no teams at all from any of the above clubs in the U20 or U17 Men's races although there was one team in each of the U17 and U20 women's races - in each case from Victoria Park. At Under 15 no local club finished a team in the Girls race although Victoria Park had a team in the Boys event. At Under 13 the figures were one team in the Girls race (VP) and two in the Boys race (VP and KO).

Although it is disappointing to see how few teams could be raised locally it does have a real positive for us. The field is wide open for any club which recruits and develops its Junior Section. We are starting from at least an equal footing with the surrounding outfits. So let's do it.

In the U13 Girls race the only athlete forward was the reliable Rachel Busby who was 85th in 16:55. She should not be too disappointed at this because although the trail was heavy underfoot and had some very depressing long, nearly straight and flat stretches where you could see the long and winding course ahead, she has been ill for a while recently and was also conceding up to two years to others in the age group. At Under 15 Claire Reid ran her usual good race to be 84th in 18:57 and Kirsty Kelly was 105th in 20;43. If these girls can stay together and grow up in the sport they can be the foundation for a really good squad in years to come. Many of the opposition will drift from the sport, you can guarantee that a number of the top runners yesterday were training too hard and will leave the sport, you yourselves will develop and get stronger and as time passes YOU will all be in the first ten or twenty in every National.