By Matthew Kiernan

More than 30 Croydon Harriers across the age groups tackled the South of England road relays at Aldershot last weekend, with the U17 men leading the way in 31st.

In the highly competitive event, which attracts more 4,000 athletes across the weekend, Croydon fielded six complete teams in five different age categories.

The U17 men’s quartet spearheaded the club challenge in 4x3.8km event, with Luke Baker (14 minutes, 15 seconds), Laurence Johnston (13:23), Kartik Iyer (14:08) and Rob Spalding (13:41) performing strongly in the 50-team field.

In the flagship men’s relays of 6x6km, Croydon enjoyed a 29-place improvement on their performance in this competition 12 months ago, finishing in 45th overall out of the 96 teams that started.

Peter Chambers (20:34) kicked off proceedings handing over in 58th. Mark Plackett (20:05) then picked up 11 places to move the team up to 47th with the team’s fastest time of the afternoon.

Alex Penfold (21:16), Simon Loughran (21:25) and Ben Savill (21:20) kept Croydon in the mix before Alan Burn (22:00) anchored the team home to 45th.

In the other age groups, the U15 boys were 44th with Omar Harhara fastest over the 3km course in 10:26 - he was joined by James Drummond, Dane Lawrence and Kieron Connor.

The U13 boys were 37th with Prince Reid clocking the team’s quickest time in 12:08, with help from Marcus Stoute, Caleb Drummond and Jordan O’Dongo.

The girls were led by Josie Kavanagh, Sabrina Stoute and Abbie Burrett with the trio finishing 75th.

Croydon’s senior men’s B team were 80th with the fastest time coming from Neil Aikman in 23:51.

In parkrun news, Brendan Murphy notched his 10th win at Riddlesdown in 17 minutes, 13 seconds.

At the British Masters athletics championships in Birmingham, Tony Richards won a gold and a silver medal in the M60 age group.

Richards threw 11.73m in the shot putt to take the title, adding to his earlier runners-up finish in javelin with a throw of 35.17m.