Girls in the West District

The girls who ran in the West District Championships should all go on to be excellent Senior athletes. It has been some time since we had teams of girls and boys wanting to run Cross Country and we should be really pleased about it. Kirsty Alexander finished in 48th on the first stage in 11:41 with Caitlin Dick ten places back in 12:31. On the second stage, Roisin McShea picked up an astonishing thirteen places to be 35th in 10:21 - in the first half of the field a gain of that many places is outstanding. Behind her Diane Nicholson for the B team picked up a
very good fourteen places to be 44th in 12:51. With no B runner on the last stage the very promising Claire Reid moved up to 30th with a time of 10:34. The B team lost out because of illness when Rachel Busby was forced to withdraw. The boys team started with Andrew Hunter who was 51st in 11:50; he was followed by David Campbell who picked up to 46th in 10:50 and David Newton on the last stage ran in in 40th in a time of 10:18 which was the club's fastest on the day.

The girls could do well in the years to come but they really need more role models: the boys go to the cross country and road championships and see the senior men running well and listen in on their conversation and talk to them on the day. The girls do not have this luxury. Other than Marina, the women in the club seem reluctant to come to the relays or championships. Girls who are endurance runners have particular difficulties that boys do not have - I have written earlier about the female triad, Liz McColgan is on a bit of a crusade nationwide (ie GB wide) about women working with girls - and it would be good if more women were at the cross country championships, even if not running but just as friends and sources of information for the girls. No matter how much a man knows about the subject, many maybe even most, young girls are reluctant to discuss some things with him. The County Relays are this weekend and all age groups will be present and the National Relays are the following Saturday.

Women's League

The ladies team was very good and took part in the League for three years before members departing and not being replaced made it unfair on those still competing to put them in with too few athletes to compete. The key to their success I think was the turn out and attitude of the Seniors. The team was organised and managed by Emily Hardware whose daughter Lynn was one of the top runners in the club and Agnes Gibson whose husband David was a pole vault coach and her son Steven and daughter Heather competed for the club. They did an excellent job of getting all members, from Under 13 to Senior together. To take one year as an example, there were no fewer than 16 Senior athletes turned out for the club. Almost all were road runners who did not train for or on the track. The most versatile was Shelagh King whose enthusiasm was really infectious. In 1990 she ran at one meeting or another 200 metres, 400 metres, 1500 metres, 100 metres hurdles, 400 metres hurdles, and also covered the shot and sicus plus the 4 x 400 relay! The main athletes who were track and field oriented were Ann Murray (100, 200, 400, LJ, 4 x 100 and 4 x 400), Lynn Hardware (100, 200, 100 metre hurdles, HJ and discus.) Other road runners were Marjorie Small, Lesley Small and Hylda Stewart. It was a great time and we could be as good again with the right spirit.
If Phil manages to enter a team in the CSS League next year, he will need senior athletes to compete alongside the younger ones and with the new track coming available as well, it could be a great 'coming together' of the club. Come on ladies, you have a winter to get organised - with luck he could have Jolene, Donna and Natalie competing as the mainstays of the senior squad but they will need back up, especially over the 1500 and 3000 metres events.

The Ladies

In my time in the club, results have gone in cycles with great success following periods notable for their lack of competitive success. This has been particularly true of the women who have, when they were good, been far superior to the men in the club. There have also been periods when the women's section has been virtually defunct. In recent years we have had the first woman president in the club - Aileen Scott did a very good job for two years - and the first woman secretary - Yvonne is doing a super job for which she has to be commended: long may it continue! The other thing about the women is that when they have been numerically strong and competitively successful, they tend to want to have their own section with their own committee and their own treasurer handling their own money. That has happened three times in my time in the club. These groups tend to last for three or four years at a time. So where are we now in the period before the Annual General Meeting?

Well, first, the Ladies Section is strong in competitive terms in open races. Second, many of the top positions in the club are held by women - secretary, minute secretary, press officer, social secretary as well as Ladies Captain. Third there is a good group of young female athletes in the club from Under 11 up to Under 17. The ingredients are there for a good women's section on the not too distant horizon. There is a gap however between the two groups - the senior women tend to be road runners training from the Antonine with the younger ones training separately with Donald and/or Phil elsewhere. It may be that when the club moves into the new St Peter the Apostle School the two groups will come together and a proper women's group will be formed. In the meantime, the younger women have a problem at cross country races in that their events tend to be right at the start of the day with the senior women's being up to three hours later. Fiona McCue has been very helpful at many races in taking the girls round the course and helping them warm up for their event but on several occasions there has been no one filling this function. If this gap could be filled and the two groups brought closer together, perhaps by a women's team manager responsible for looking after the junior athletes and organising numbers, etc for the seniors, then the groundwork would really be in place for a strong women's section in a couple of years time.

It would be good to see them working together.