In conditions more suited to cross-country rather than track running, Wallasey Athletic Club's team in the 4 x 440 yds. senior event put up a great performance at Preston last Saturday.
Heavy rain had already turned the track surface into a quagmire and earlier races had not helped matters when the senior relay was called for. Owing to the rapid deterioration of the inside lanes it was decided to use the outer lanes for the first lap.
Wallasey's Alan Kin had drawn lane 4, with Burnley A.C. inside and Bolton A.C. immediately outside him and after losing a few yards down the back straight came through strongly to hand over in the lead in 54 seconds.
Mike Teahan held this slender lead until the home straight on his circuit, when he was caught by the Bolton man, but fought back gamely to pass the baton on to Alan Keating after a fine 53 second lap.
Alan had a couple of yards to make up and he did this before the first 50 yards had been run. He passed his man, after a change of step, on the outside and handed over to the youngest man on the track, Ian Wilson, after returning in 55 seconds for his lap.
Ian had a short lead now, but it was seen that Bolton's Chris Goudge, the Olympic quarter miler, was after him and using Ian as a pacemaker down the back straight.
Coming off the bend, Goudge used his strength and experience to pass Ian and got home with 2 yards to spare.
Ian showed a grand 53 seconds to give a total time for the Wallasey team of 3:35.8, compared with Bolton's 3:35.5, in the best race of the afternoon.
The 4 x 1 mile relay teams had to contend with pouring rain on top of a track that was by now a mud-bath, following the Northern 6 mile Championship race in which over 30 runners completely ruined what was left of the surface in negotiating the 24 laps.
Despite reasonable first lap times which would, under normal circumstances, have put them on the way to a reasonable schedule, each runner waded his way to a dismal time and, in fact, the fastest man in the race could only manage something like 4 minutes 40 seconds for his leg.
For Wallasey, Johnny Jones led off and recorded 5 minutes 5 seconds in 4th place. Barrie Smith followed with 4 minutes 57 seconds and pulled a place back which Steve Walker kept in 5 minutes 3 seconds. He handed to Dave Lockley for a lap of 4:55.3 and a total time of 20 minutes 0.3 seconds for a third placing.
The club house will be open from 12:30 today to enable those who wish to watch the F.A. Cup Final.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 20/05/1967
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