National - Cross Country Championships - Blackburn on 25/02/1967 (Senior Women)
There were record fields in all three sections of the National Cross-Country Championships for ladies, which were held at Blackburn last Saturday when Wallasey's captain, Barbara Banks and young Pat Robertson took part in the senior and intermediate races respectively.
Pat was away first in a field of nearly 120 girls, running a 2-mile course, which coincided with an almost tropical downpour. Northern champion Pat Lewis of Bury, quickly took a lead which she was not to lose and the rest of the field was strung out behind her before the half-mile mile had been reached.
Pat finished in 16th place in her first National championships. As a first year intermediate, she will have an advantage next year when most (if not all) of the 15 girls who beat her will move up into the senior ranks. But one thing is certain, and that is that she will not, have to compete in worse conditions than she did last Saturday.
One does not usually associate the female of the species with the word 'guts', but that is the word for the performance of Barbara Banks last Saturday.
Along with 130 other seniors she experienced similar conditions to the younger girls in the previous race, but with the added burden of an extra 1 ½ miles to run.
Barbara was in 70th place at the close of the first circuit and moving along very nicely when she took a nasty fall in negotiating a narrow gap in a fence with barbed wire surrounds.
Barbara slipped approaching the hazard, twisted her right leg and received a deep gash in her left ankle which needed seven stitches at the Blackburn lnfirmary after the race.
But she ran on to the finish, nearly half-a-mile away, although having lost so much ground in falling she had to be content with 89th place. A poor reward for a lady with guts!