NATIONAL 12 / 6 STAGE RELAY

Morpeth Harriers at long last are celebrating the ultimate triumph achieved by their Senior Men’s Road and Cross Country squad.
On Saturday 11th April in a resplendent, and sunny and windy Sutton Park, Sutton Coldfield, they achieved a very much long awaited ambition, to win English Road Racing’s most major title, the English National Men’s 12 Road Relay Championships.

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For a period of twenty years the club have flirted with near success,
by winning Bronze on no less than four occasions, 
and Silver on two however on Saturday, that all changed, 
when cheered along by their faithful supporters
including stalwart Club President Jim Alder, 
they lifted the most coveted of titles.Posting an overall time of 4hrs21mins52secs, 
they won by a margin of 74 seconds over Midland Champions Notts AC, 
with fellow Northerners Leeds City, four times former winners, a further 148 seconds further adrift in third place.

Following Lewis Timmins first Long leg clocking of 27m35s which saw him finishing in tenth place, 
and Ryan Stephenson’s second Short leg of 15m59s which saw him climb five places to fifth,
third leg runner Andy Wiles very much set the Morpeth Harriers stall out for the rest of the day,
by taking the squad up into first place, with his clubs fastest Long leg time of 27m34s, 
only by a mere one second to Timmins, and the later to run Nick Swinburn.

Morpeth never lost the lead after that, despite ongoing pressure behind from Notts, who had again  
got into second place from Leg five after briefly losing out to Bedford for two of the previous legs.

Other Morpeth Harriers performances came from Kevin Calvert (15m57s), Carl Avery (27m55s),
Nathan Shrubb (15m52s), Nick Swinburn (27m35s), Chris Smith (16m15s),
Peter Newton (27m36s), Ady Whitwam (16m03s), Ian Hudspith (27m40s),