The North East XC Championships
Saturday’s North Eastern Cross-Country Championships at Darlington are the latest in a line of events that stretch back to 1894-95, giving the event a proud 115-year lineage.
Open to all clubs affiliated to the North East Counties AA, Wallsend Harriers have been intermittent participants in these Championships over the years. Initially formed in 1920, Wallsend’s name can be found among the list of age-group trophy and Championship winners in many of those inter-war years, found again on occasion in the immediate post-war years, only to disappear for much of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s during years in which the club did not exist at all.
With the re-formation of the club in 1975, Wallsend once again joined the north-east clubs for the annual Championships, and Saturday’s race will see the green-and-gold vests among club representatives from all over the area.
Success for Wallsend athletes in the North East Championships has been somewhat limited. In the Senior Mens Championships, only three individual medals have been won by Wallsend athletes – Ernest Appleby picked up a bronze medal in the 1928-29 race, Paul Naisbitt repeated this feat in the 1988-89 race and Stephen O'Gara achieved the same feat in 1996-97.
In 1986-87, Wallsend picked up a bronze medal in the Senior Mens team race, when the sextet of Nick Fields, Paul Brannigan, John Lucas, Colin Atkinson, Paul Merrison and Dave Milligan finished third behind winners Sunderland. In the mid 1990’s, with a particularly talented pool of runners, Wallsend were beginning to rival bigger clubs in the area, and in the 1996 North-East XC Championship, Lee Morgan led home the Wallsend seniors in a thrilling race at Willington with a 7th place finish. The club just finished out of the team medals, by the smallest of margins, with a fourth place in the closest-ever local Championships. It is a race which still haunts Stepehn O’Gara who, by his own admission, had his worst-ever ‘pressure run’ for the club. Had he run to form, he is convinced Wallsend would have won gold on that winter day in Weardale.
Success for Wallsend runners has been slightly more frequent at some of the younger age-groups. In the ‘Junior’ Championships, Bill Appleby won gold in the 1923-24 event. Incidentally, that proud young man pictured in the top right of this piece is in fact Bill Appleby - the old photograph shows Bill posing in the original amber and black colours of Wallsend in the 1920's. The trophy with which Bill is pictured may well be the one awarded to the Junior Champion at the time.
Terry Musgrove won the ‘Youths’ title in 1948-49, during the brief post-war re-incarnation of the club, while Tony Patterson was a popular winner of the same trophy in 1981-82, a feat that John Lucas repeated the following year. Wallsend have twice won the team gold medal in this Youths race – in 1926-27 and again in 1991-92. This latter triumph was led by third-placed Lee Morgan, and the other three counters that day were Phil McCartney, Phil Wilson and Tony Murray.
In the ‘Boys’ race, Tony Patterson (79-80) , Phil McCartney (89-90) and Nathan Shrubb (99-00) have given the club a hat-trick of gold medallists. The middle of these three successes was also marked by team gold, with Lee Morgan runner-up behind McCartney.
Full list of individual medal winners:
Seniors
1928-29 – 3rd E Appleby
1988-89 – 3rd P Naisbitt
1996-97 - 3rd S O'Gara
Juniors
1923-24 – 1st W Appleby
1925-26 – 3rd E Appleby
1926-27 – 2nd E Appleby
1927-28 – 2nd E Appleby
1949-50 – 2nd J Musgrove
1986-87 – 2nd T Smith
Youths
1924-25 – 2nd E Appleby
1926-27 – 2nd G Brown
1948-49 – 1st J Musgrove
1981-82 – 1st A Patterson
1982-83 – 1st J Lucas
1989-90 – 3rd P Morgan
1990-91 – 3rd P McCartney
1991-92 – 3rd L Morgan
Boys
1979-80 – 1st A Patterson
1987-88 – 2nd I Knox
1989-90 – 1st P McCartney
1989-90 - 2nd L Morgan
1999-00 – 1st N Shrubb
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