men clinch bronze in northern relays

Morpeth's Senior Men at Manchester

​After over three hours of racing, Morpeth’s Senior Men’s squad picked up a hard-won team Bronze in the Northern Athletics 12 Stage Relays, held at a breezy Wythenshaw Park in Manchester on Saturday afternoon.
 
With over fifty teams in a Senior Men’s race, which included strong squads from local teams across the North West as well as those who’d made journey over the Pennines from Yorkshire and the North East, it was always going to be a tall order for Morpeth to retain a title they took at Redcar last year, but the team can certainly hold their heads up after putting in an excellent showing that saw them within only thirty seconds of a Silver medal and a minute and twenty seconds off  Gold.
 
Once again Finn Brodie got the team off to a good start, tracking Team GB triathlete Jonny Brownlee, representing Bingley Harriers here, with Brodie recording 23 minutes 40 seconds for the 8 kilometre leg.
 
In his first team outing for Morpeth after transfer from Blyth, Josh Fiddaman showed his potential with 13:37 for the first short leg of 4.5k, with Connor Marshall taking the second long next to record 24:43.
 
Tom Prentice clocked 14:01 on leg 4 before passing on to Carl Avery, whose long leg of 23:10 was the club’s fastest time for the distance.
 
Ellis Hetherington, like Fiddaman in his first team outing for the club, clocked 13:46 on leg six, and with Alex Brown’s 23:55 for the day’s final long leg, the team were comfortably in a third place that they never looked like losing.
 
Morpeth’s remaining short legs were run by Tom Balsdon (14:07), a late Friday night addition, George Lowry (13:50), Alistair Douglas (14:14), Lawrence McCourt (13:25, the team’s fastest short leg) and Will Cork (13:31), for a net time of 3 hours 26 minutes 5 seconds, well over a minute ahead of Liverpool Harriers and AC in 4th (3:27:38).
 
Unsurprisingly, Leeds City were winners, clocking 3:24:46 with local outfit Salford Harriers and AC second in 3:25:35.
 
There was a decent team out from NE teams, with Gateshead just outside the top ten in 11th (3:44:14), Sunderland Harriers 18th (3:47:24) and Tyne Bridge also making the top twenty in 19th (3:47:48).
 
The Women’s Six stage was won by Sale Harriers in 1:57:12, only 11 seconds ahead of Leeds City in 2nd with Vale Royal a distant 3rd (2:00:26).
 
The only NE representation was by South Shields Harriers and AC, who to their credit turned out not just one but two teams, the A team making top twenty in 2:10:48 and a B 45th in 2:18:52.