Men’s Road And Cross Country Team News

After many years as manager of Hillingdon AC’s Road and Cross Country Men’s team, Gerry Archer has decided to step down and I will be taking over the reins.

During his time as manager, Gerry has overseen an overall improvement in the performances of the Men’s team as the club have consistently qualified for the National Six and 12 Stage Road Relays and won individual races and championships including the Liddiard Trophy in 2007 and 2009 and the North Of The Thames Championship in 2008. In addition, the Senior and Under 20 Men’s teams have regularly finished in the top three places at the Middlesex Cross Country Championships.

On behalf of the club, I would like to thank Gerry for all the time and hard work he has contributed to this role over the years.

I (Paul Leppard) have volunteered to become the new team manager. I have some experience of the role, having managed the Men’s teams for the Southern and National 12 Stage Road Relays in 2008, the Southern and National Six Stage Road Relays in 2010 and the occasional cross country race in Gerry’s absence.

As team manager, I intend to make use of the “teamer” website to facilitate communication between myself and team members. The website allows me find out relatively quickly and easily if athletes intend to compete at upcoming races, which is a tremendous help when it comes to knowing how many numbers I need to pick up or who to enter for forthcoming championships.

All current male members over 17 who are registered with England Athletics, expressed an interest in road or cross country running and entered a valid e-mail address or mobile phone number on their membership form should have received an invitation to join the site in the last few days. If you haven’t already, I urge you to use the site or respond to the text messages sent out, so that I have some idea of who is going to compete at each fixture.

The first Metropolitan League fixture of the season is this Saturday, 08 October at Woodford. I’d like to set a target that at the end of the season, the men’s A team finish sixth in Division 1 and the B team finish in the top two places in Division 3 and get promoted to Division 2. To achieve this, we need to have a strong turnout for every single Met League fixture. Further information on the Met league may be found here: http://www.metleague.co.uk/leagues.html

I hope to see as many of you as possible on Saturday.

Paul