Harriers rise to the challenge: The AAA of England National 6 Stage Road Relays
The cream of the athletic teams from all corners of England toed the start line for the Final of the AAA 6 Stage Road Relays, which were held at Sutton Park, Birmingham, on Saturday 23rd October. Sixty-five teams in total had succeeded in gaining places from their regional championships. The conditions could not have been worse for this prestigious event, with heavy rain and strong winds buffeting the runners throughout the afternoon.
After their sterling performance in the South of England Championships (5th team), the Wells Harriers team had high hopes of doing particularly well in this year’s event. Unfortunately, two of the original six (Jon James and Andrew Baker) were injured and the Wells team manager, Clive Thomas, had to dig deep into his squad to find two replacements. Tom Bush and Rob Parfit took up the challenge.
The team got off to a good start through British International Andrew Hennessy, with a time of 17.32 and were 5th after the first leg, only 7 seconds behind the leaders, Tipton Harriers. Carl Morris started the second leg quickly and had soon moved Wells up into second place, but his fast start took its toll towards the end and he was outsprinted in the final 100m and handed over in 6th place to Tom Bush, but still only ten seconds behind the leaders.
Unfortunately for Tom several of Britain’s best distance runners were running leg 3, including three previous National Cross Country Champions, Keith Cullen, Spencer Barden and John Brown. Tom gave all he had, but slipped back through the field to hand over to Wells second International, Ben Tickner in twenty fifth position, some two and a half minutes behind the leaders.
The overall leaders on the 4th leg were now defending champions Belgrave Harriers whom Wells had run close in the Southern Championships. Ben, who had flown in from Germany the previous day, to represent the Harriers literally flew around his leg passing eleven teams on the way to bring Wells back up to 15th and recorded the fastest time of the day for the Wells team in 17. 31.
Ben’s younger brother Frank took over to run leg 5 and continued Wells march back towards the front of the field with an excellent 17.41 time and 11th position overall. Only Birchfield’s Kenyan International Kahara ran significantly faster on this leg. The team’s last runner Rob Parfitt had a hard task to hold off a host of quality athletes who were literally breathing down his neck at the changeover. In the end he did well to only lose a few places and brought the team home in 16th place to register Wells Harriers among the higher teams of Britain’s Road Running fraternity. It is interesting to note that the Harriers team is completely ‘home grown’ whilst many of the teams above include athletes that have been recruited from far and wide.
Positions at the end of each leg and individual times:
| 1 | Andrew Hennessey | (5) | 17.32 |
| 2 | Carl Morris | (6) | 17.54 |
| 3 | Tom Bush | (26) | 19.35 |
| 4 | Ben Tickner | (15) | 17.31 |
| 5 | Frank Tickner | (11) | 17.41 |
| 6 | Rob Parfitt | (16) | 19.55 |