Senior League Match 2 - Costello Stadium, Hull, Saturday 5th June 2010

Three records fall as Scunthorpe Battle to Third place

Report by Matt Hammond

Following from the first match in Division 2 of the Northern Senior league where they finished second from bottom Scunthorpe and District senior athletes knew this season was going to be a battle for survival. With this in mind team manager Gav MANN put out a rallying cry to all of his athletes in a quest to stay in the division. This proved to be successful when at the second match at HULL, Gav put out a stronger team which involved the new, the young and the old.

The new came in the form of Suki CIRILLO who is a student at Sheffield who has joined the club in order to compete alongside her boyfriend Matthew SHAW. Suki made an immediate impact, coming second in the A string Long JUMP and winning the B string 100m and 200m and was also a member of the winning 4x100m relay. Another new competitor this year saw the return of Joe GIBSON who hasn’t competed for 2 years but has kept himself active taking part in strength competitions. This break has obviously not done Joe any harm as he put his new found strength to good effect gaining second place in the Hammer and third place in the Shot both with new personal bests.

The young saw the club draw on several under 17 athletes .First on was Alice Kaye in the 400m Hurdles where she finished third in her first ever attempt at the distance as has been the case this season every time Alice tries a new event she shows her tremendous potential. This time by breaking the club record at under 17, under 20 and senior level. She then went one better finishing second in the 400m. She was supported by her young club colleagues who helped to fill B events and gain valuable points. These include Tyler LEE in the 200M and 4x100m , Laura kaye in the 1500m , Lewis STONES in the 1500m, Tom CARLYON 400m and 4x100m and Elicia BONES in the Javelin.

The old then came in the form of 3 club coaches who can best be described as over 40! Matt HAMMOND supported Joe GIBSON in the throws winning the B hammer before taking 5^th place in the A discus. Next Scott MITCHELL ran the 1500m again pacing his young athlete Lewis STONES, before Lewis kicked away. The final oldie was Steve HESLOP from the road running section who had actually attended to officiate but showed you can teach an old dog new tricks when he volunteered to earn valuable points in the Long Jump.

As the day went on it became obvious that this match was going to be a lot closer than the first and Scunthorpe, Lincoln and the host club Kingston upon HULL swapped places for the first three spots during the afternoon. It became obvious the event was going to go right down to the wire when Scunthorpe produced excellent results in the relays. First were the Scunthorpe ladies in the 4x100m were not only did  Alice Kaye, Rachel Fisk Suki Cirillo and Sophie Croft win the race they dipped under the 50 second barrier and broke the club record. Not to be out done the men 4 x 400m team also set a new club record when Leo Smith, Simon Pope, Daniel Hughes and Karl Mcdonagh finished strongly in second place and knocked over 2 seconds of the previous record when they average at under 52 seconds per leg.

The team then had to sit and wait for the final event the women’s javelin before the places were confirmed. There were only 13 points between the first three places with Hull winning, Lincoln coming second and Scunthorpe taking an excellent third place.

After the match team manager Gav MANN said “I wish to congratulate the entire Senior Team who gave 100% at Hull.   After coming second to bottom when we competed at Doncaster, in Match 1, we had everything to do”.

Gav went onto say’  Even though we had some new athletes and athletes returning after ‘time out’ we still managed to finish 3rd overall This was a great result in our quest to stay in division 2 and we more than proved that we can compete at this higher level.’

The team will now head to Rotherham on 4th July for the third of 4 matches in 4th place. Knowing that if they can finish 3rd in the last two matches their survival in the league will all but be guaranteed.