As the majority of the club matches are complete, bar a fixture in the Northern League, please see a round up of the season.
YDL Lower
We went into the season optimistic that we would do quite well as we had a huge depth of athletes to choose from:
After match 1 at Trafford, the optimism was backed up as the team won the opener from Wirral. However the second match at Trafford saw Wirral bounce back to reverse the placings. The third match provided a bit of controversy as a huge downpour with thunder and lightning meant the match was abandoned with Wirral leading by 8pts. The result stood, but we were confident that had the weather not intervened, we would have won as we had some very strong events to come. With just the top team going through to the national finals, we had to beat Wirral at Blackburn. However, with a few big scoring athletes on holiday we again just fell short and Wirral beat us again.
Good luck to Wirral in the National final.
Prospects for next season look promising. Some of our top U15’s will be moving up, but we have a significant number of athletes who are U11, were bottom age at U13 and U15.
YDL Upper
Just 3 matches for the YDL Upper team as we failed to make the top 2 and reach the playoffs. Two third place finishes in the opening two matches was enough to keep us in the Premier division despite finishing last in the final match, which was abandoned due to thunder and lightning.
The club lacked numbers in female middle distance and also in the field for both females and males and the arrangement for second claim athletes never materialised.
Next season looks much better with a huge number of U15’s moving up, so we will have greater numbers to choose from and hopefully some second claims.
National League
The first round of matches were cancelled due to the King’s Coronation. The second round of matches we travelled to Bedford where we came across a very strong Cardiff side who won the match and ended up finishing 2nd in the league. We finished 4th in that match. The second match was a trip to Yeovil where we really struggled to get athletes to travel and ended up with just 16 athletes. We thought we had finished last, but Bristol had some points deducted after scrutiny and we finished 7th. The final match was a home match, this weekend, in very wet conditions, where we put a strong team out, but came across a very good Tonbridge team, who were unbeaten across all matches and deservedly won promotion. We finished 3rd in the match and were very close to second and could and possibly should have pinched second bar a DQ, a NH and an issue in the men’s 200m.
Overall we finished mid table, but in reality we lacked numbers as we struggled to find middle distance athletes for both males and females and a lot of athletes that were not prepared to travel.
There is clearly an issue with the format of the league is very Southern based and we are the only Northern club in the championship. The league are fully aware of the issues and are trying to find some solutions to resolve this and we await feedback.
Northern League
With no National League match due to the King’s Coronation, we took a very strong team to Macclesfield and were comfortable winners in the first match. The second match was at Wavertree and again we got good numbers out and won for a second consecutive match. The third match was at Edge Hill Uni where we encountered some huge downpours, but completed the match. A slightly weakened team finished third overall with hosts LPS winning.
The final match is at Wrexham on Sat 19th August where a 3rd place finish or better will see us promoted to the NW premier division. We are fairly confident we can do this as the other four teams have struggled to get anywhere near the top 3 teams.
*The team finished 3rd, behind Southport Waterloo and hosts Wrexham and despite being tied on points, Southport Waterloo overcame an 83pt gap in overall points to gain promotion.
The change of rules relating to bottom age U17 and the introduction of a female 3k steeplechase have been contentious, but we expect to be competitive in the top league next season, should we get promoted.
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