THE decision to join forces in men's track and field athletics was fully vindicated, as the Colchester Harriers and Colchester and Tendring Athletic clubs combined to gain an overwhelming victory in their first match of the season in the Southern Men's League at Hemel Hempstead.

The pooled resources meant that every event was covered, and almost all events had specialists competing in them.

It also meant that a large team of officials were available to help administer the meeting.

The athletes and officials immediately gelled into one team supporting each other, and the stream of successes buoyed up hopes of a successful season to come, resulting in promotion.

The brand new blue vests racked up 27 victories in the afternoon, helping towards a superb total points score of 166, a massive 53 points ahead of the second place team.

Rob Earle was a major points scorer, defying the years by continuing to produce consistently excellent performances, winning the hammer, discus and shot, narrowly missing 13m in the latter.

His son Jamie produced a great throw of 48.02m to take the B string in the hammer.

Another event where Colchester athletes overshadowed the rest of the field was the 1,500m, where Lloyd Heard and Benedict Bauer set off together at a breakneck speed, building up a 100m advantage over the rest of the field, and were rewarded with times of 4m 14s and 4m 18s and two wins.

A similar pattern emerged in the steeplchase when Tom Herbert and Paul Spowage cruised away from the field for two wins, and a very good time of 10m 10s for Herbert.

The very high quality pole vault kept the spectators attention, and provided tough competition.

Young Sam Davies showed good promise in winning the B string with 3.40m, while Michael Holden eventually won with 4.00m despite struggling with his technique.

He also had to control his technique in the discus to ensure staying in the competition, but he managed to throw 33.38m to gain B string victory.

Aaron Bollu and Matt Rose had a clean sweep in the horizontal jumps, winning A and B strings in long and triple.

The versatile Rose also competed in the 110m hurdles and shot, and won the high jump.

Another versatile athlete was Robbie Smith, who won the 400m in 51.8s, the 400 hurdles in 62.9s, and was the fastest leg in the 4x400 relay and won B string high jump.

The 800m saw another clean sweep, with David Gibbon winning in a very good 1m 59s, and Ian Vickery doing enough to win the B string, after already winning B string 400m hurdles, and going on to compete in the tough 110m hurdles also. Immediately, following the 800m, Gibbon competed in the 5,000m, finishing second B string, while Chris Sellens gained second A.

Young Tom Cutts did very well to win the javelin with a distance of 43.92m, and he also won the B string 400m.

In the sprints, James Grant won both B strings, while David Lo was second for both A races.

Colchester won both relays by large margins, but were disqualified in the shorter race for changing outside the box.

With such a large lead already in the match, this was not a serious problem.

The team's next match will be a home meeting at Colchester, where they will be challenged by losing several athletes to the Essex Schools Championships on the same day, but it must be hoped that the great spirit and momentum generated at this first competition will be continued.