Morpeth Harrier Andrew Lawrence very seriously warmed up for his B team appearance
at the Northern Athletics Road Relays in Manchester, by competing for his employer
Barclays in a very unique event on Thursday 22nd September 2016.

He took part in the Bloomberg Square Mile Relay, which is run in seven cities in the World,
including London, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Sydney, and New York,
and courses are plotted through office buildings throughout the respective business sectors.

The race comprised 115 financial services teams each made up of ten runners
who raced through the heart of the City of London, and was being held for the tenth time.
Barclays winning margin over JPMorgan in second place was 1 minute 25 seconds
and they were 38 seconds quicker than the time set over the same course last year.

Barclays made an excellent start, with Lawrence appearing in his 8th Square Mile relay
running the fastest leg of the entire field (4m48s) - not bad for someone who had run 69:52
in the recent Great North Run, and had followed this up with a 2hrs 46min marathon training run !
​
It was a great team effort by Barclays however, and they were pleased to once more
donate their £5,000 prize money to the Richard House Children’s Hospice in East London.

Morpeth Harriers held the second in the series of Young Athletes Club Championship Road Races,
sponsored by Linden Homes, on Lancaster Park, on Monday night. (26th September)

The Under 11 Boys event, which had a field of 16 runners was won by Ryan Davies,
who posted a time for the 1.30mile circuit of 9m02s.
This gave him a Gold Medal.
In doing so, apart from the finishing time, Ryan was emulating the achievement
by elder brother Dylan in the Under 13 Boys event the week previous.

Second place in the Under 11 Boys Championship went to Harry Jackson in 9m05s,
and third place and Bronze medal went to Adam Howliston,
who posted exactly the same time as Jackson,
just being run out in a final tight finish.
​
Posting a time of 10m24s, Sophia Cunningham won the Under 11 Girls event,
which had ten competitors, by a comfortable margin of twenty-five seconds from Lauren Garrett,
who just outpaced Maisy Dickenson by one second for the Silver medal.

Other Results were as follows
BOYS RACE
Dylan Walker (4th) 9m12s,
Joseph Hudspith (5th) 9m13s,
Ethan McBride (6th) 9m27s,
Bruce Smith (7th) 9m42s,
Alfie Laskey (8th) 9m52s,
Will Smith (9th) 10m03s,
William Devere Owen (10th) 10m15s,
Fintan Ward (11th) 10m33s,
Jack Kirby (12th) 10m33s,
Ben Smith (13th) 11m25s,
Harry Boag (14th) 11m27s,
Nathanial Hutchinson (15th) 11m40s,
Evan Stead (16th) 11m53s.

GIRLS RACE
Jessica Doyle (4th) 12m54s,
Katherine Johnson (5th) 12m59s,
Ava Nevins (6th) 13m45s,
Scarlett Havery (7th) 13m46s,
Molly Haldane (8th) 13m46s,
Molly Bailey (9th) 13m47s,
Ruby Bailey (10th) 13m57s.

All medallists will receive their awards at a special presentation night,
which is being sponsored by Linden Homes, on Sunday 20th November,
at Barluga Restaurant in Morpeth.

​It was certainly an excellent day at the office for athletes from Morpeth Harriers & AC,
who were competing in the Northern Athletics Road Relay Championships,
held at Sport City, Manchester, on Sunday 25th September 2016.

The club’s Senior Men achieved a set of Bronze team medals in their 6 Stage event,
and their four other competing teams on the day, all achieved top ten placings.

Posting the third fastest time of the day overall of 16m12s,
Peter Newton got the Morpeth Senior Men into second place on the penultimate fifth leg,
however sixth and final leg runner Thomas Straughan succumbed to intense pressure
from Derby’s Richard Weir on the final leg, and was forced to settle
for Bronze medal placing, despite clocking 17m18s.

The earlier legs of Sam Hancox (17m06s), Ian Harding (16m59s),
Nick Swinburn (16m34s), and Carl Avery (16m43s),
had seen the squad progress from 15th to 4th.
Liverpool Harriers were the event winners,
by a margin of thirty seconds from Derby,
with Morpeth a further eighteen seconds adrift.

Morpeth also had a Senior Men’s B team competing in the event,
who managed to finish 23rd of 100 complete teams,
and fourth of all of the B teams in the event.
The fact that they had finished in as high as they had,
meant that Morpeth had also qualified for the National Relay finals
at Sutton Park in two week’s time, to be eligible to field a B team.

Runners competing in the Morpeth B team were Andrew Lawrence,
who managed to head the Morpeth A runner Sam Hancox on first leg,
posting a similar time of 17m06s, Jake Masterman (18m50s),
Fergus Bates (18m42s), Mark Snowball (18m30s),
Karl Taylor (18m03s), and Jordan Scott (18m03s).

Daniel Dixon of Morpeth Harriers produced an excellent third fastest clocking
of 9m00s in the Under 15 Boys three leg relay, which elevated Morpeth from
seventeenth place to a final position of sixth, following the earlier legs
of Daniel Melling (9m54s), and Thomas Cunningham (10m17s).

A truly excellent performance saw Morpeth Harriers Under 15 Girls finish sixth.
They got off to an excellent start, when Ellie Coxon came home in ninth place, posting a time of 10m41s.
Lily Heaton valiantly held on to this placing throughout her second leg posting of 11m23s,
and Holly Peck ran well to claw back three places on the final leg, where she clocked an excellent 10m47s.
​
Posting an excellent tenth fastest of the day time of 9m50s,
Morpeth’s Rory Leonard got Morpeth Harriers Under 17 Men’s squad off to an excellent start,
when he finished seventh on the first leg of the Under 17 Men’s three leg relay.
Despite clocking 10m40s on the tough second leg, Liam Marsh slipped to eleventh on leg two.
However, Kieran Hedley managed to get the squad back up to seventh,
with his final leg clocking of 10m09s, which was the fourth fastest of the leg.
Connor Marshall of Morpeth finished 22nd in 10m40s on first leg,
for an incomplete Morpeth Harriers B team.

​Morpeth Harriers Under 13 Boys finished an excellent tenth in their three leg event,
courtesy of Ben Walker (10m30s), Alex Porteous (10m54s), and Dylan Davies (10m31s).  

Accumulating a grand total of 2,720 points, Morpeth Harrier Jessica Young-Rogers
proved to be one of the day’s star performers at the North Eastern Counties Athletic
Association’s annual Pentathlon Championships, held within an Open Meeting,
that also included the North East Veterans Championships,
held at Monkton Stadium, Jarrow, on Saturday 24th September 2016.

Jessica won a silver medal behind Gateshead’s Amelia Bateman, who had scored 3,284 points,
which proved to be a championship best performance for the Under 17 Women’s age group.
The much talented Morpeth sprinter won the 80m Hurdles in 12.2s,
which was an event that she was tackling for the first time.
She also finished third in the Long Jump (4.82m), High Jump (1.49m),
and 800m (2m49.7s), and fourth in the Shot (7.37m).

Another Morpeth Harrier in action in the Under 17 Women’s Pentathlon was Harriet Priest,
who accumulated a total of 2,564 points, to finish fourth in the North East Championship.
Priest’s best result came in the Shot, where she finished third with a best of 8.72m.

Amy Lott of Morpeth finished fourth in the Under 13 Girls North East Championship,
and her best result came in her specialist event the 70m Hurdles, which she won in 11.7s.
She accumulated a total of 1,841 points over the five events.

In the Under 15 Girls Pentathlon, Morpeth’s Megan Winter finished ninth in the regional championship,
with her best result coming from the 75m Hurdles (14.1s).
She accumulated a total of 1,691 points.

As a footnote to the Pentathlon performances, all four Morpeth Harrier athletes now sit
highly in the National Rankings (Power of 10) following their respective achievements.
The event was filled with high quality, attracting athletes from other areas.
All of the Morpeth athletes competing are sprinters, however their performances over all events
were of high standard, including the 800m which was very hard
In all cases they were up against very strong athletes from other regions.

Also incorporated into the day’s competition were the North East Veterans
5000m and 10,000m track championships.

In the 5000m, Morpeth Harrier Paul Bentley was second Over 70 Man, posting a time of 23m09.4s.
​
Archie Jenkins of Morpeth competed in the 10,000m, finishing as third Over 60 Man in 49m53.9s.

Sponsored for the second consecutive year by the club’s headline sponsor Linden Homes,
Morpeth Harriers held their first races in their annual Young Athletes Road Championships,
on Lancaster Park, on the evening of Monday 19th September 2016.

It was their Under 13 athletes who got the four race programme underway,
with Dylan Davies taking the Gold Medal in the Boys race,
posting a winning time over the one and a half mile, one lap circuit, of 8m04s,
which saw him just outsprint Ben Walker to the finish line by two seconds,
with Alex Porteous taking the Bronze medal in 8m32s.

Rhiannon Hedley was an easy winner of the Girls race, posting a winning time of 9m24s.
Second place, and a Silver medal went to Mia Belton, who finished in 10m03s,
just three seconds ahead of 2015 Under 11 Girls Champion Orla Callaghan,
who now in an older age group, improved on her last years’ time by 32 seconds,
and added a Bronze medal to her collection.

A total of 41 finishers took part, with 29 crossing the
finish line in the Boys event, and 12 in the Girls event.

Other Results were as follows
BOYS RACE
Dylan Gooding (4th) 8m38s,
Ben Waterfield (5th) 8m39s,
Bobby Stone (6th) 8m41s,
Jack Livingstone (7th) 8m43s,
Jack Barrett (8th) 8m46s,
Charlie Lane (9th) 8m47s,
Ciaran Leahy (10th) 9m00s,
Callum Rowell (11th) 9m01s,
James Tilley (12th) 9m05s,
Callum Lee (13th) 9m10s,
Zak Phillip (14th) 9m11s,
Ollie Bruce (15th) 9m13s,
Sam Tate (16th) 9m20s,
Aaron Haldane (17th) 9m39s,
Sam Parker (18th) 9m49s,
Thomas Coulson (19th) 10m02s,
Jack Cahill (20th) 10m16s,
Joe Oliver (21st) 10m22s,
Noah Ions (22nd) 10m31s,
Finlay Coulson (23rd) 10m51s,
Evan Logan (24th) 10m54s,
Joseph Nicholson (25th) 11m40s,
Louis Bailey (26th) 11m42s,
Tom McKenna (27th) 11m56s,
Euan Heaton (28th) 12m51s,
Ben Thorpe (29th) 12m53s.

GIRLS RACE
Amelie Binns-Smith (4th) 10m07s,
Rebecca Bradley (5th) 10m43s,
Laura Melling (6th) 10m48s,
Katie Fraser (7th) 10m52s,
Fay Smith (8th) 10m57s,
Francesca Takher (9th) 11m26s,
Emma Gerrard (10th) 11m26s,
Eadie Barakat (11th) 11m30s,
Molly Ions (12th) 11m30s.

All medallists will receive their awards at a special presentation night,
which is being sponsored by Linden Homes, on Sunday 20th November,
at Barluga Restaurant in Morpeth.