Tartan Games

The curtain rang down on the North Eastern Counties
Track and Field season on Sunday 30th August 2015,
with the annual Tartan Games meeting,
organised by Gateshead Harriers, and
held at Gateshead’s International Stadium.

Several athletes from Morpeth Harriers & AC
were in action at the event,
and the club had five event winners,
three of them being achieved in the Field events.

RESULTS...........

Bobbie Griffiths

One of those Field event specialists was North Eastern
Counties Under 15 Girls Champion Bobby Griffiths.
Griffiths, who had competed at Bedford on the day before
in the AAA’s Championships, showed a real zest for competition,
as she made a slight improvement on her Saturday efforts
when she threw 33.62m to win the Under 15 Girls Javelin Gold medal,
managing a couple of metres better than her
closest rival Keira Waddell of Chirnside Chasers.


Morpeth Harriers third Gold medal in the Field events
went to Under 13 Girl Elena Saunders,
who achieved a best of 8.27m in the Shot Putt.

The fourth Gold medallist from the club
in the Field events was Andrew Knight,
who won the Under 15 Boys Shot Putt
with a best of 10.18m.

Another Morpeth medal winner in the Field events
was Under 17 Man Charlie Chisholm, whose best of 8.76m, gave him a Silver in the Shot Putt.
Matthew Heslop of Morpeth, added another Silver medal
to the clubs tally in the Under 13 Boys Long Jump,
with a best of 4.33m.

In the same competition, clubmate Bobby Stone
just missed out on a podium place,
finishing fourth with 3.87m

Also very pleased was Morpeth Harriers Coach Dave Thomas, who in Griffiths, Thomas (no relation) and Brown, had produced three Gold medal winners.

Another Gold medal for the club and Coach Thomas,
came courtesy of Kirsty Lang,
who as a lone entry in the
Under 20 Women’s 400m Hurdles
took the title, albeit in 79.94s,
finishing nursing a slight niggle.
Lang had recovered however to later finish
second in the Under 20 Women’s 100m Hurdles in 18.21s, to add Silver to her earlier Gold.

Joe Dowd won a Silver medal in the Under 15 Boys 800m. After leading for the whole of the opening lap,
and beyond the bell, Dowd was eventually passed
by Blyth Running Club’s Josh Fiddaman.
Dowd was only a mere second adrift of Fiddaman
at the finish line, where he clocked 2m08.52s.

Just missing out for the Bronze medal behind Dowd,
was his Morpeth team-mate Connor Marshall,
who clocked 2m18.79s, finishing behind
Chester Le Street’s Ben Horsfield.

In addition to the aforementioned medallists,
Morpeth had other participants who came
very close to podium places.

After finishing third in his heat of the Under 13 Boys 200m, Matthew Heslop finished fourth in the Final in 28.77s.
Nadine Arkle finished fourth in the Under 15 Girls 200m in 28.51s, after getting second place in her heat,

Elder sister Naomi, finished sixth in the
final of the Under 17 Women’s 200m in 28.55s.

It was agreed that the Under 17 Men’s 200m
be run as two graded events.
Morpeth’s Declan Stoker was fourth fastest in 24.66s.

In the Senior Men’s 200m event,
which was also run as a Graded race,
Morpeth’s David Storey proved
to be fourth fastest in 23.95s.

Hot competition saw Morpeth brothers
George and Jack Balmbro go out in the heats
of their respective Under 13 100m
and Under 15 Boys 200m,
when finishing sixth in 16.36s,
and fourth in 27.31s.

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David Thomas

One man who is certainly bang on form
in the Triple Jump is David Thomas.
Thomas, who recently managed to get over
the twelve metre mark, unfortunately couldn’t
quite achieve that on this occasion; however his 11.52m
was enough to give him victory and a Gold medal.

Hannah Brown

On the track, Under 15 Girl Hannah Brown
proved to be a very fluent hurdler,
when she quite convincingly took the
75m Hurdles in 12.18s from
Gateshead’s Emma Scarborough,
who clocked 12.35s.
It was indeed a well earned Gold medal,
who had recovered from a ham-string
problem to take part.

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Results