The Enfield & Haringey AC senior teams made their season debuts last weekend, the women at Cardiff on Saturday in the UK Women’s League division 2 match and the men in the British Athletic League premier division match at Sheffield on Sunday.

The men’s team had given manager Malcolm Blackmore several headaches in the weeks leading up to the match with injuries and withdrawals – one on the day before the match. The EHAC men headed north on Sunday 7th June with a full squad albeit missing15 first choice athletes but with, Blackmore thought, a good chance of a top three finish. This optimism, although proving to be well founded, was not rewarded.

Enfield & Haringey’s final position was sixth from the eight competing clubs with the north London club a mere forty points behind Birchfield in second place, a deficit which could have easily been made up but for three pieces of bad luck or bad judgement.

In the first race of the day, Ben Sumner was leading the 400m hurdles down the back straight when he suffered a hamstring pull and limped to a halt - 16 or 14 points lost! Elijah Winn - moved up from the B 200m string race after Luke Fagan (3rd in the 100m in 10.68) had withdrawn with a troublesome niggle - finished second in the A 200m but was disqualified when his left foot landed two or three times outside his lane. Fourteen points lost. The 4 x 100m team failed to get the baton from the third runner to the fourth runner and did not finish – 16 or 14 points lost. A total of 42 or 46 points which would have more than made up the difference between second and sixth places.

The young team saw some fine running in the middle distances. Vying for performance of the day was Ben Nagy’s second place in the 3000m steeplechase; never out of the first three, 19-year-old Ben took eleven seconds from his previous PB when he finished in 9:14.21. This takes Ben up to 11th in the UK ranking lists, the third U20 junior.

A 65 seconds last lap saw another 19-year-old, Shaun Collins, finish third in the 5000m in another PB of 14:35.40, twenty-five seconds faster than previously; Sam Perkins broke 15 minutes for the first time with his second place in the B string race with 14:50.60.

Zac Saucede delivered up his usual solid race in the B 400m hurdles and was just run out of first place with his season’s best time of 53.58 seconds. Nigerian international Hakeem Ogunyemi broke the electronic timing beam in 10.72 for his second place in the B 100m race and Bonne Buwembo launched his javelin 61.69m for second spot in that event. Despite reduced training due to exams, Aaron Trim recorded 48.36 in the B 400m, centimetres behind the winner. Mark Johnson vaulted 4.40m in the pole vault event to take the 12 third place points and Matt Brown spun the discus out to 52.10m for his third place.

Final event of the day saw sprinter Elijah Winn open the EHAC 4 x 400m campaign with a 49.0 sec lap in first place. Zac Saucede’s 50.3 second leg dropped Enfield to third but Aaron Trim regained a place with his 49.0 sec lap and Adam Daish just failed to catch the leading runner on the last lap, recording 48 seconds.

At Cardiff on Saturday, the Enfield & Haringey AC women’s team over came gaps on the team sheet for fifth place in the eight club UKWL second division. Torema Dorsett had a double win in the sprints taking the B 100m in 12.02 and the A 200m with 24.7 with Rachel Telfer-James second in the B string with 25.4. New member Mary Ihek ran 56.2 for third place in the A 400m and Michelle McNamara set a personal best of 57.1 when she took second in the B race.

Michelle and Mary combined with Emma Rowley and Nikki Silva for EHAC’s second place finish in the 4 x 400m with 3:55.4.

Also on Saturday 6th June at the Oregon Track Club Open in Eugene, USA, Darren St Clair ran a lifetime best of 1:47.23 in the 800m.

Two athletes who were to feature prominently in the BAL match at Sheffield were involved in an exciting 2000m steeplechase at the annual St Mary’s Classic in Twickenham. Chasing winner Samater Farah, 19-year-olds Shaun Collins and Ben Nagy both set new personal best as the first four finishers all beat the meeting record. In second place Collins recorded 5:51.46 to remove 5 seconds from his PB and five seconds and one place later Nagy trimmed his PB by 18 seconds for a 5:56.22 timing. This fine result places Shaun and Ben at second and third on the national rankings with Nagy sitting at the top of the U20 lists.