SAL2 at Chelmsford

Woodford finished 2nd in the second SAL fixture of the year, at Chelmsford on Sunday 12 June. A tight match saw the top 3 positions change throughout, but Havering ended top provisionally 7 points clear of WGEL with Basildon 3rd and Thurrock adrift in 4th in contrast to their victory in their first match when they had used their home advantage.

An unusual timetable for the double header fixture saw the mens hammer open with club stalwart (and M55) Fergus Harford winning in a season’s best 30.64 and Hugh Williams beating the rest of the field. The womens hammer was an even stronger showing, with 4 WGEL women well ahead of the rest of the field, Simbi Sikiru with 48.97 as a non-scorer finishing ahead of Chiara Okereke (46.18) and Steph Howe (43.29), with Abigail Allen also more than 10m of the next best thrower. George Vaughan had the male performance of the match, winning the 400m hurdles in 54.24. The overall highest ranked result was in the women’s 400m hurdles where U17 Steph Okoro of Havering ran the fastest junior time of the year in 60.64, but second in this race in only her second hurdles race was Rhianna Buaku in 71.30PB.

There was misfortune in the 800m where M40 Andy Brown, having travelled down from Scotland and just weeks away from challenging for the world masters title in his new M45 age-group, pulled up injured early in the race. Videsh Weerakkody finished 2nd overall in 1:59.32, his fastest outdoor time this season, and followed not long after with a 400m PB of 52.43 for 3rd in the A. WGEL women scored strongly in the sprints, led by Joanne Ryan’s 100 and 200m double (12.48 and 25.98 -1.7w). These were backed up by B string success for Eloise Lewis at 100 (13.08)and Lakhesia Adams Poku at 200m (26.75) , with Lakhesia also running a 100m PB in the non-scoring race (13.06). At 400m there was a welcome return for injury for Kyra Boyce who took 2nd in the A with Sophie Anderson taking the B string. The men scored solidly too, with Winfred Hakeem 2nd A 100m and Kaidan Chambers taking the B. Winfred just edged ahead of George Vaughan in the 200 (23.25 to 23.32 in tricky wind) for 2nd A and 1st B string respectively. The distance events benefitted from larger fields thanks to the double header format, which was particularly welcome for Alex Wardle who otherwise may have run a 5000m all on her own! Returning to the scene of his own 5000m success in the Essex champs on Wednesday, Josh Entwistle was always prominent in the combined 3000m and pulled away to win in 8:43.60, with Simon Beedell 2nd in the B. Josh then returned for the 1500m where he took maximum points in 4:10.43 albeit this time behind the sharp end of the other fixture, while in the women’s race Jess Adam’s 5:14.48SB was good enough for 3rd in the A.

Kirsty Bateman Foley made an impressive debut for Woodford in her first competition for over four years, winning the javelin in 37.46, just short of her best ever. Top individual scorer Hugh Williams just missed out on a shot win despite a season’s best of 12.25, but a PB of 37.94 in the discus provided a second B string win behind Chris Linque’s 43.78 for a close 3rd in the A. Amelia MacDonald was the top scorer for the women, led by winning the long jump with her best distance since 2019 of 5.36. She also won the high jump in 1.56, while finishing 3rd in the A shot put in 8.19SB to enable a B string win for Simbi Sikiru. Lawrence Davis was a convincing winner of the long jump in 6.83, but the lack of other jumpers made for a busy day for team manager Alan James. U17W Kharina Partridge was second in the triple jump in 10.87, with Temi Olusesan taking the B string victory as part of a valuable gap-filling day which provides a useful example to her YDL upper team. Gaps in several later events saw Woodford slip from 1st to 3rd going into the relays, but Basildon were unable to sustain their push at this stage leaving a straight fight against notional hosts Havering.

While the women’s 4x100m team of Zahara Malcolm, Lakhesia Adams Poku, Katie Skelding and Eloise Lewis won the combined race in 50.79, Havering took second in the match despite being well adrift of the teams in the other fixture. The mens quartet of Kaidan Chambers, Adrian Richards, George Vaughan and Winfred Hakeem just failed to hold off Havering in 44.25 for 2nd overall. In hindsight this meant that uncontested points in the womens steeplechase were enough to give Havering the match win, but with results outstanding it appeared as though the match was in the balance and the mixed 4x400m teams responded accordingly. The A quartet was led off by George Vaughan who brought the baton through ahead of the other A squads and this lead was extended in each leg with Joanne Ryan (58.8) and Zahara Malcolm (60.8) setting up Adrian Richards (50.4) a resounding win in 3:43.25, a new club best in the event. The B quartet had more competition from the other fixture, but eventually prevailed through Videsh Weerakkody (53.3), Sophie Anderson (65.3), Rhianna Buaku(65.2) and Winfred Hakeem (55.0) with Havering almost 30 seconds behind but victorious overall. While this result should just be sufficient to move Woodford out of the early season relegation zone after a difficult first match, strong results in the upcoming home fixtures, the first of which is on Saturday 16 July, will be needed for a more significant move into the top half of the league table.