AND BARLOW'S WINNING TIME LOPS 51 SECS. OFF COURSE RECORD
During the past twelve months Wallasey Athletic Club have been unbeaten in 'three to score' road races and local athletics enthusiasts have been increasingly of the opinion that the brilliant trio of Barlow, Woolford and Wright are a match for any other three in the country in road races up to ten miles.
Last Saturday they once again took on the best Northern clubs in the Longwood "10" and despite the presence in the field of national cross-country champions Derby & County A.C., they again triumphed with a total of 13 points compared with Derby's 21, while Ron Barlow won the individual race with a time of 50 minutes 51 seconds, breaking international Ron Hill's course record by the large margin of 51 seconds.
In view of his many fine runs over the last two months of road races Barlow's success was not unexpected but this win was so decisive that if all goes well with him in his training he is likely to be a serious challenger to Britain's top marathon runners later this summer.
The same can be said of team mate Brian Woolford who ran another fine race to finish fourth, which with the 8th place of John Wright completed a great team effort by the Wallasey runners.
MATHER'S GOOD MILE IN COUNTY MATCH
On the same day clubmates Kevin Mather, Brian Chalton and Carl Gee travelled to Cheadle to represent Cheshire in a three-cornered track contest against Lancashire and Staffordshire. Mather ran a good second to Empire and European Games representative Brian Hall who won with a time of 4 minutes 9.4 seconds against 4 minutes 10.5 seconds by Mather.
Mather led the field for the first two laps, which were both covered in 63 seconds and although during he third lap he was overtaken by Hall and several other runners he came through strongly again,
coming up to the bell to tuck in behind Hall with milers of the calibre of Swarbrick of Blackpool and "boy wonder" Jefferson close
With no runner at this early stage of the track season having any surge round the last bend, there was no change of position on the last lap except that Jefferson faded into 5th place and with a last lap of 61 seconds Mather can be well satisfied with his 4 minutes 10 seconds, which showed a 6 second improvement on his mile at Fallowfield a fortnight ago,
Carl Gee was placed 4th in the discus event, and in the three-miles Brian Chalton finished fourth in the good time of 14 mins. 40 .secs.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 04/05/1963 by R.M.C.
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