THE Bromsgrove and Redditch Athletics Club women's team easily won their section of the Midland Veterans Track League South Division on May 10.

The ladies, who contested every event, scored 237 points at the Abbey Stadium, Redditch, with Halesowen second on 157.

This was the curtain-raiser to the Veterans' track and field season and Polly Gerner, Julie Wakelam and Yvonne Priestman got the women off to a great start by winning their respective 100 metre races.

Elaine Worth and Sheila Williams won the A and B 2000 metre walk in the over 45s 1500m.

Bronwen Cardy finished first with Kath Haley second in the A race, and Rowena Bales winning the B race.

In the 100 metres, Yvonne Priestman won the A race with Ann Stuart second in the B race.

In the field events, Julie Wakelam won the A high jump and was second in the hammer, with Yvonne Priestman second in the W45 high jump and Rita Brownlie fourth in the W45 javelin.

Performance of the night was a new club record in the W50 shot when Carol Walker achieved 6.69m and finished second.

The ladies relay team of Gerner, Priestman, Stuart and Wakelam easily won the final event, the 4x200m relay.

Creditable second

In the men's section, where they finished a creditable second to Worcester, there were wins for Bernie Jones and Phil Garbutt in the A and B 1500m, with Peter Hawcroft competing in his first track vets meeting coming third in the over 50s race.

Also competing in his first veterans meeting was Russell Rawlins, who was fourth in the B 100m and fifth in the B 400m, but ran as a guest in the 1,500 and would have finished fourth if he had been scoring.

Simon Radcliffe was fifth in the A 100m and fourth in the high jump.

Roger Beacham, in a rare track outing, was fifth in the over 60s 100m, just failing to break the club record.

Dave Cleverleyn came fifth in the A 400m and Clive Brown fourth in the O50s race. There were wins for Dave Henley (new club record) and Kevin Worth in the 2k walk, which completed the track events.

Mike Jones won the M50 hammer and M60 shot putt with new club records and Phil Carbutt completed the field events by winning the M40 javelin. The relay team were third in the 4x200m.

The race of the night was the men's 1500m which Bernie Jones won by only 1.5 seconds.

This was Bernie's last race in the league, since he leaves the area soon to take up a new appointment in Cheshire. The club wishes him all the best for the future.

Team manager Maurice Priestman said: "I'm delighted with the result and the team is eagerly awaiting the second meeting in Redditch on June 4."