With a best time this season of four minutes six seconds Wallasey miler Kevin Mather was recently accepted for the A.A.A. mile and he made a great effort on Friday evening last to win his way through to the final.
Although lacking the experience and strength of our top milers at this stage of his development, Mather nevertheless put up a great show, not so much by finishing fifth in his heat when the first four qualified for the final but by the manner in which he had a tilt over the last lap against most of Britain's top milers.
Always near the front during the first three laps of a race which was essentially tactical, with the runners conserving energy for the final next day. Mather decided to go for home with 250 yards to go when he went past the three leaders with a tremendous burst of speed which took him into the last bend, leading by several yards.
Entering the home straight with the field flat out at his heels, Mather held on magnificently only to fade with as little as 20yds. to go when four runners just crept by to keep him out of a final place by .2 of a second. Mather's time was four minutes 8.9 seconds.
The measure of Mather's performance is that he failed so narrowly to beat runners such as Brian Hall, who has a time of 4.01 to his credit this season. Derek Haith, inter-counties mile winner, and Smith and Sunderland, who have both beaten four minutes five seconds this season. Only by a slight error of judgment as regards the length of his finishing run did Mather fail against four runners of whom three finished in the first four in the final on the following day and he did in fact beat others such as international Mike Beresford and Rhodesia's Terry Sullivan.
As in the recent Northern championships when he was third in the final Mather again recorded a last lap of 56 seconds and with more experience of this sort his future seems bright indeed.
A week before these championships Mather won both the mile and half-mile events in the Merseyside track championships at Wavertree when he had to contest the half mile only half an hour after winning the mile in very windy conditions on a loose track.
At the same championships Brian Woolford ran a splendid race in the three miles to finish second to Pembroke's Geoff Warriner in the very good time for the conditions of 14 minutes 37 seconds, while Carl Gee, although below his best form, achieved third place, in the discus.
With Woolford and Ron Barlow running so well over 20 miles this summer and Barlow at present in training for the A.A.A. marathon championship, it seems that Wallasey A.C. runners are achieving higher levels of performance than ever before and one cannot resist the hope that this next winter will see the finest Wallasey cross-country teams ever to represent the club.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 21/07/1962 by R.M.C.
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