BROMSGROVE and Redditch Athletics Club’s A team performed well at the Midland Six Stage Relay Championships at Sutton Park, to qualify for the forthcoming National Relays.

Some of the bigger clubs’ B, C, and D teams were quicker, meaning that B and R’s actual finishing place on the day was 29th out of 80 teams completing, but they finished 21st out of the 25 A teams.

B and R’s three teams all went quicker than last year.

Nine of the runners took part in the 2007 event and five of them clocked better times this year, with the other four all running close to last year’s times.

Run of the day came from C team member Calvin Scoltock, who knocked nearly three minutes off his 2007 time over the 3.65 mile course.

For the A team, running times were consistent with both Rich Malin and Dave Henderson going well to each record under 20 minutes for their runs.

Ian Keyte, John Dineen, Kevin Lanckham and James Adie, all with excellent runs, completed for the team, which finished in a creditable time of two hours, two minutes 46 seconds.

Seven and a half minutes behind was the B team, who finished 49th overall.

James Bowler, James Hood and Paul Atkins, all returning from injury, ran well to record good times and were well supported by Rich Shardlow and Mike Hanson to keep the B squad in a good position.

Debutant Simon Lanckham ran a good leg and repeated his cross country feat of a week earlier by bettering his dad’s time.

A further eight minutes behind was the C team. Simon Bowen led off and after a very quick start, he suffered later in his run but still recorded a good time.

Scoltock then had his brilliant run to claw back 22 places, before the ever reliable quartet of Andy Freeman, Phil Anderson, Peter Hawcroft and Alan Elsmere also achieved excellent times to maintain a respectable 65th place.