Cambridge Harriers Senior Men’s A Team mounted a brave attempt to rescue their promotion dream from the British League Div 3 in the rain of Crawley’s superb K2 stadium on Saturday.

But despite their valiant efforts, which saw them challenging for the lead throughout the day, they finished the match in third place, behind the divisions leading pair, Crawley and Derby. Whilst this result now effectively ends their pursuit of a fourth consecutive promotion, it does firmly establish their status as the ‘best of the rest’ as the Harriers went six points clear in the table of fourth placed Southend.

The day provided much for Cambridge to be optimistic about as they continued to give debuts to their ever expanding roster of promising young stars. 15 year old David Bolarinwa returned from international duty to comfortably win the 100 B race, whilst 16 year olds Omari Markland-Montgomery and Donomar Smith took on stiff opposition over 400 metres.

Eighteen year old Stefan Mitchell lost out in a photo-finish in the 100 metre A race, but took revenge by winning the longer 200 metre sprint.

Other winning eighteen year olds were Craig Lacy who maintained his 100% winning record in the javelin and Andy Sheridan who won the 800 metre B race, where Joe Durrant had already won the main event.

The Eltham and Bexley based club also produced a winning double in the field, but here we saw the alternate side of the chronological coin exemplified as this time it was 50 year old Andy Kruszewski and 47 year old Tony Tipping that won both discus competitions.

Once the dust had settled on the day though, the Harriers were to find themselves for once ‘the bridesmaids’ as the leading two secured the two league promotion places, barring a freak result in the last match.

Few of those present had any doubts though that the developing talent at this club meant this team had simply put their celebrations ‘on ice’ for a year.

Final Result: Crawley 345, Derby 337, Cambridge Harriers 315, Medway 280, Bournemouth 268, Southampton 233, Bedford 216. Southend 197