View from Parliament Hill - The Men’s National X-C Championships Parliament Hill, London - 27th February 1993

The National Cross Country Championships at Parliament Hill fields on Hampstead Heath in London proved to be the ultimate test of cross-country running. The course had everything:- plenty of hills (the start was straight up a huge hill!), ditches, woods, fast stretches and of course knee deep bogs which claimed literally hundreds of victims. The three lap ordeal was an advertised 9 miles but most runner were grateful that it was nearer 8.5 miles, still the longest hardest race of the year.



As international superstar Richard Nerurkar lead Bingley to the team title with a fine win in 42.52, Spenborough had two in the top 100, great running at this level considering most of the 2156 finishers would call themselves athletes (not joggers who make up the numbers in large road race fields). The finishing order of these two Spen stars was a shock to everyone as Lee Warburton reached heights thought beyond his grasp with a mind blowing 44th place in 45.32, while previously established Spen No.1 Jeff Hornby failed by his own high standards in a nevertheless excellent 67th place in 45.32. Jeff was hoping for a top 20 place as his phenomenal training sessions may have indicated, but he didn’t peak and will have to wait another year.

nother disappointed Spen athlete was Alf Wolfenden, who was running very well in the 200’s when he fell into a deadly clay bog and later lost a shoe, taking about three minutes to find it and put it back on again, he bravely carried on to finish outside the scoring team (625th in 51.28). This was the second time this season that Alf has finished a cross country race smeared head to toe in mud and it is not difficult to see why he prefers road running.

The third Spen runner was Dave Sunderland (288th in 48.50), who peaked magnificently here and has produced the goods in all the big races this season. Then came Darren Hanson (405th in 50.16) enjoying his first National and having a tremendous battle with Mick Dransfield (467th in 50.23). Darren pulled away in the second half of the race, enough to hold off Mick’s finishing kick on the fast run in to the finishing funnels.



The scoring team was completed by Dave Baskerville (561st in 51.08) to give Spenborough a glorious 29th team from 238 scoring clubs, the best National performance in Spenborough history. The battle not to be last man in (for Spen) was fierce ans was only resolved in the last mile as your ’scoop’ Myles Chandler (636th in 51.34) pulled away from Tony Patchett (659th in 51.42), decent performances which meant that all 9 of the Spen squad finished in the top third of the field.

With Spenboroughs’ best ever team performance clearly having room for improvement (Alf’s disaster and Paul Dobson’s injury cost us hundreds of points), Spenborough A.C. proved that petty minded tent deprivation (’you can’t put tents up on the Heath, you’re breaking a 400 year old by-law! - quote, obnoxious park keeper) and a 400 mile coach trip can not stop our progress, and I look forward to next season with anticipation.

View from the medal rostrum - Halifax and District X-C Championships Low Moor, Bradford 20th February 1993

Just a week before the National Cross Country Championships, the be all and end all of the club cross country season, Spenborough turned out five members of the by now established squad and promptly came away with team Bronze medals in this annually held Championships, which although not too meaningful is a good warm up for ‘The National’.

The 7.5 mile course was very dry but the three large laps, which crossed the open hillside, were exposed to blasting winds, made the running slow and hard. Individual star of the day for Spenborough was Lee Warburton, who gave his mounting confidence another boost by adding the individual Bronze medal to his team Bronze by finishing 20 seconds behind winner John Taylor of Holmfirth (41.38) in a time of 41.58.

With teams requiring five scorers the rest of the squad packed into the top 30 (out of over 70 finishers) and all ran to recent form with Alf Wolfenden (13th in 44.49), Dave Baskerville (17th in 45.49), Dave Sunderland (20th in 46.09) and your ‘scoop’ (Myles Chandler - 30th in 47.32) taking the almost worthless, sorry I mean priceless team medals.

Also placing highly for Spenborough were Keith Miller (32nd in 48.03) coming back from injury well and the ‘ageless’ Frank Reddington (36th in 48.38), the cross country team manager who has sadly been forced to leave himself out of the National team.