Final Kent League Cross Country, Bromley – Saturday 8th February 2020

The final race in the Kent Cross-country League was always going to be an exciting and successful finish for Medway & Maidstone AC men. Who was getting the top individual trophy, that was the question? Going into the final race, two club runners headed the league, Robert Meyer with 9 points and Tewelde Menges, just 1 point behind on 10. With the nearest rival on 17 points it was between the club’s two league leaders. Meyer, having ran a superb 10 km road race in 30.09 the week before, must have been confident and decided to stamp his authority from the off. His fast start proved to be too strong, not only for Menges, but everyone else, developing a clear early lead and winning the race with a large 30 seconds margin. Menges finished in 4th, still good enough to leave him in a strong silver medal position. 

In addition to the two top awards, the club took more overall league medals with Justin Lane (M40 Silver), Neill Wright (M40 Bronze), Barry Royden (M50 Gold) and Alun Rodgers (M50 Bronze). Out of the 438 runners competing in the league this season the club had more top finishers with Marley Godden 4th, Mark Wilkins 6th and Jack Crossley 8th.

Out of 26 competing teams, the club finished second in both the 4-to-score and 12-to-score team competitions: a repeat of last season. 

On the day, the club were second in both team competitions, this following similar positions in every meeting this season. However, this was their closest to taking a win for 2 years. Following Meyer and Menges, Ben Tyler, with his best race for some time, was 8th followed by Tom Collins in 10th, closing the 4-to-score team. The 12-to-score team was completed by Mark Wilkins 12th, Marley Godden 16th, Jack Crossley 30th, Chris Rampling 31st, Neill wright 38th, Barry Royden 39th, Daniel St Martin 41st and Justin Lane 42nd. Further back up was provided by Alun Rodgers 58th, Adam Featherstone 61st, Gareth Williams 65th, Sean Rodwell 84th and Darren Wright 117th. Harry Collins who normally has a top 50 finish missed the start by 10 minutes and ended up in 127th after passing over 100 runners! 

The ladies were missing a few runners due to injury for this final race but still put on a good display with strong individual and overall team results. Taryne McPherson with another highly placed run finished in 21st followed closely by Jenny Fowler (23rd) and Bernadette 59th to close the 3-to-score. Vanessa Vander (66th), Cat Rodwell (97th) and Kat Ford (108th) completed the 6-to-score. Overall in the final team placings the ladies finished an impressive 3rd place in the 3-to-score out of 21 teams and 4th place in the 6-to-score out of 15 teams.