Lee Tolhurst and Keith Vallis

Basingstoke was the first men's league venue for the joint Andover and Overton team.

This season has seen a number of juniors move up into the senior ranks so everybody was expecting a good result.

Not to disappoint the joint team started to dominate the track events with a convincing win from Dave Awde in the 400m hurdles (62.7). This is still a relatively new event for the firefighter but he showed great promised to dominate from the gun. Dave was followed by his training partner Ricky Taylor who fought hard to earn a solid second place (67.2). Both go to the Hampshire County Championships looking for to finish in the top three.

Next up on the track were the 100m runners. Fresh from a hamstring injury James Folkes did well to finish in second recording a steady 11.7. The rapidly improving Adam Harwood, in only his second ever 100m finished second and clocked a new pb of 12.3. Both times were hampered by a strong headwind. The team was performing equally well in the field events with Jeremy Reynolds taking second place in the hammer (23.47) and Awde second in the pole vault (2m).

Young multi eventer Matt Woodhouse secured third in the high jump (1.40m), long jump (4.88m pb) and shot (7.55).

Back on the track the team continued to produce good performances. In the 400m James Whiteman came third with a new pb of 54.4, reward for his consecutive training throughout the winter. In the 800m, training partners Kearon Hooley and Chris Adams led from the gun and won both the A and B string easily. The boys were equally impressive in the 1500m where Kearon was third in the A string and Chris Adams won the B-string easily in a pb.

In the long distance events Keith Vallis and Lee Tolhurst doubled up to record third place in both the 5,000m and 3,000m steeplechase. This was a massive performance and showed that age is no barrier to guts and determination.

In the relays the team fielded a strong 4x100m coming a very close second to Team Southampton. In the 4x400m the team was again narrowly beaten into second by the very strong Team Southampton squad.

Overall the team produced some massive displays and were rewarded with second place in the match, narrowly missing first by just half a place. Andover AC is sponsored by C K Building Contractors.

12:55pm Wednesday 14th May 2008

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