Sport Sports List Cross Country
Cross Country
Cross Country
We had the most successful year for a long time, though our numbers opting for Cross Country have declined from the halcyon days of yore when it was not unknown to field over thirty, even on a Sunday. Choice of games is freer now and there are more options so those who are left are a hardy bunch, able to cope with mud, rain, hail or even snow.
The house matches were held in the traditional fine weather and indicated real depth for the Junior Boy’s team and our usual strength in the girls. Thus a week or two later at the first round of the English Schools Cross Country Cup both the boys and girls teams qualified for the Regional round. Unfortunately, for the first time ever, we were unable to raise teams for this race owing to our runners having clashes with their other sports.
The Spring term was a busy one with nine fixtures and travelling far and wide. The first major one was to defend our title at the King Henry VIII Relay. Unfortunately our star senior runner, Nikki Hamblin, was injured but our team was still strong enough to have won on any other year in the past. Not this year! Sevenoaks put us in our place despite Rosy Cooper running a new course record. We enjoyed the usual freezing challenge of the Quantock Relay, fielding two teams, and two girls teams successfully defended the Canford Relay . We had two firsts, two thirds and a fourth at the Somerset Schools Championships , and a fourth and two fifths at the South West Schools so we knew our six runners would do well at the English Schools in Mansfield, and so they did: Senior Girls: Nikki Hamblin 7th; Junior Girls: Justine Bowers 50th ,Junior Boys: Alex Wiltshire 15th, Arthur Pakenham 47th. Rosy Cooper and Danielle Page also represented Somerset.