Paul Dobson and Tracey Apps led Springfield Striders to a narrow win in the opening North Essex Cross Country League fixture, sponsored by McNeils,on Sunday.

Storm force winds meant that the usual woodland course at Gosfield School had to be abandoned, as trees were falling in Broaks Wood.

The organisers hastily engineered a new course of five laps of the playing fields.

Although flat, the course proved a real stamina sapper with the runners struggling against the gusting winds.

Dobson was to the fore from the start, and after the first lap was battling it out with Paul Spowage (Colchester Harriers), Ben Matthews (Mid Essex Casuals), Graeme Knott and Jason Meachen (both Harwich).

By lap two Spowage and Matthews had dropped off the pace and Richard Jordan (Ipswich) began to make his move.

The final three laps saw Dobson, Jordan and Knott pull away from the rest of the field and a delighted Dobson punched the air as he crossed the finishing line with a fifty metre winning margin.

A storming last lap from Martin Rea saw him move up from eleventh to seventh. This was to prove a major contribution to the Striders winning margin of just five points.

The ladies race was a bit more difficult to follow especially after a couple of laps when backmarkers were starting to get lapped.

Tracey Apps, who like all the other Strider ladies, has had a quiet few weeks on the racing front, burst back to form with a powerful run to finish second and lead the Striders' ladies team of Liz Turk (6th) and Denise Harris (7th) to victory.

Fifteen points was just enough to beat Colchester & Tendring, but it was crucially fifteen ahead of Ipswich giving the Striders the overall by five points.

Published Wednesday October 30, 2002

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