Southend Athletics Club's senior men's A team got off to a flying start when they opened their track and field season with a win over four other teams.

New coach Roger Smith was delighted with his team's performance as they beat athletes from Braintree, Ashford, Bracknell and Oxford.

"It was a brilliant atmosphere with all the team encouraging each other throughout the match," said Smith. The whole team competed well and I am quietly optimistic for the season."

Ex-Shaftesbury Harrier and former junior international Dave Condon has returned to Southend this season and soon got the team on the scoreboard with a win in the shot put with a 15m 25cm throw.

Condon also took second spot in the javelin and hammer. Other field successes saw Steve Brown, another junior international, win the pole vault with a 4m leap.

Toby Sullivan took a first in the B string long jump, while also coming second in the B 400m hurdles and B triple jump.

Simon Thomas jumped clear with a 2m leap to win the high jump.

Promising youngster Neil Scrivener was triumphant in the 400m hurdles in 56.09 secs and battled his way to second in the 110m hurdles and shot putt, both B string events.

Colin Miles clocked 1min 56secs to take second in the 1500m and Mark Smith was second in the 100m, 200m and long jump events.

Wins narrowly eluded Mike Mansfield and Mark Waine in the A and B steeplechase, while veteran Peter Binns came fourth in the 5000m in 17mins 11secs - a time still 18 seconds inside the Athletic Weekly over-50 benchmark.

The Southend club travel to Portsmouth for their next meeting on Saturday.

The success of the A team was not shared by Southend's B team when they travelled to Basildon.

Peter Lawrence's win in the B string 110m hurdles was the club's sole victory as the nine-man squad were outmatched by teams from Chelmsford, Peterborough, Newton Abbot and Weymouth.

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