Saturday saw Liverpool's Sefton Park being circled by all Merseyside Athletic Clubs when the annual Sefton Park Road Relay championship was contested with six runners from each team covering the lap of 3¼ miles.
After their run of road race successes Wallasey started hot favourites and despite the absence of Ron Barlow they scored another success in a total time of 99 minutes 88 seconds, against 100 minutes 20 seconds by Wirral A.C. and 105 minutes 3 seconds by Liverpool Harriers.
The fastest individual lap of 16 minutes 2 seconds was run by Wallasey's John Wright and four of the five fastest laps were achieved by Wallasey runners.
The first lap was taken by John Young who ran as a late stand in for Ron Barlow and turned in a most determined lap of 17 minutes 28 seconds to keep Wallasey well in the race with an opportunity for Wallasey's top men to wrest the initiative from old rivals Wirral A.C.
This John Wright then proceeded to do with the day's fastest lap during which he brought Wallasey up into second place and gained 200 yards on Wirrals' top runner, Martin Cranny, to leave Kevin Mather with only a 100 yard deficit. With a lap of 16 minutes 26 seconds Mather duly wiped out the deficit to hand over a few yards' lead to Tony Townsend.
Townsend, like Young, ran with a tremendous determination to give Wallasey's top runners their chance. His lap of 17 minutes 15 seconds left Brian Chalton with the task of overhauling Wirrals's Worrell who started with a lead of 200 yards.
Chalton closed remorselessly on Worrell, finishing with great power to give a lead of 35 yards to Brian Woolford after running the third fastest lap of the day in 16 minutes 23 seconds, shared jointly with Meadows of Sutton Harriers.
Wallasey hearts now ceased to palpitate as Woolford once again showed why he is a national class road runner by extending Wallasey's lead to 250 yards at the finishing line, in a victory that was due in no small measure to club spirit and team running of a very high order.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 06/04/1963
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