Never have conditions been as severe as they were at last Saturday's Inter-Counties championships, held at Caversham Park, Reading.
Loosely packed snow several inches deep, in addition to an arctic like numbing wind, made good running impossible, and the race which is usually won in a time of something like 87 minutes dragged on for another quarter of an hour before the winner shuffled out of the last drift and crossed the line.
For Cheshire, Martin Cranny from Wirral was first home in 61st position followed by his team mates from Wirral, Harper in 89th and Biddle in 101st positions. Wallasey's first man home was Brian Woolford in 112th place, just beating Kevin Mather 114th. Cheshire's other counters were W. Jeffs of Wirral A.C. 160th, Tony Townsend 179th, who was running well until one of his running shoes was badly ripped open by another runner's spikes, and although his foot was injured, courageously carried on to finish the race. Ron Barlow, the Cheshire champion had a disappointing race. After a good start he dropped badly and finished well down in the. 230's, John Wright, the Cheshire captain, also had a bad run and just could not cope with the conditions, he finished 263rd.
The surprise winner of the race was Tim Johnston, a Cambridge undergraduate, who ran a magnificent race to defeat the English cross-country champion Gerry North and Basil Heatley the World 10-mile record holder. As expected, Lancashire 51 pts won the team race for the third consecutive year, easily defeating second team Warwickshire (118 pts.), and third team Yorkshire 176 pts. Cheshire finished 16th team with 630 pts.
Today are the Liverpool & District Championships in which the Wallasey A.C. team are hoping to repeat their
Cheshire victory over rivals Wirral A.C. and also defeat the Liverpool teams Pembroke A.C. and Liverpool Harriers. Unfortunately they will be without Tony Townsend who is representing Loughborough College against Cambridge University, so they will have to pull something extra out of the bag to win.
Ends
Source - Wallasey News - Saturday, 26/01/1963 by LYDUTTY
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