After a solid start to the campaign, Herne Hill Harriers men's team kicked into gear in emphatic style with a victory in the second fixture of the British Athletics League at Norman Park, Bromley.

In the first ever BAL match to be hosted by local rivals, Blackheath & Bromley Harriers, Harriers took an early lead with a double first in the hammer courtesy of Stuart Thurgood and Mark Hanily.

They held the lead throughout the afternoon and ultimately prevailed over the promoting club by six points.

The win moves the club up to third in the league table, but level on points with the top two, which means that another good result in the next match at Leeds could see the club challenging for promotion in the final fixture at Kingston.

Herne Hill Harriers’ 400m runners also claimed a double win, as Sammy Mensah showed his class and judgement in winning the A string while Toby Adeyemi produced a brilliant win from the outside lane.

Both runners recorded excellent personal best times into the bargain.

Other event victors were B string winners Robert Graham, a real class apart in the B 100m, Allandre Johnson in the B javelin and 15 year old Blade Ashby, whose B high jump win was one of three very valuable contributions he made to the team’s triumph.

Two HHH club records were set, as the 4x100m relay team displayed much better baton exchanges to record 41.82 to beat a record set back in 1991.

Thomas Ashby was another whose contribution was immense, as he pole vaulted (placing 3rd), high jumped (2nd) and threw discus (3rd) and shot (6th) as the A string man in all four events. His best effort was his pb pole vault of 4.00m, which equalled the club U20 record.

Although finishing 3rd in the B string 800m, 15-year- old Lewis Lloyd made a stunning debut by improving his personal best by more than three seconds, clocking in at 1:56.09.

This great run will give Lewis a big boost before running 1500m at the English Schools Championship starting on Friday.

The following athletes all placed second in their events in addition to those performances mentioned above: Idris Ojuriye A 200m; Byron Robinson B 200m; Michael Dyer A 800m; Kevin Quinn A 5000m; James McMullan B 5000m; Garry Power B discus and Stuart Thurgood B shot.

Jeff Cunningham was second in the B 3000m steeplechase with a personal best time all the more remarkable as he stepped in to fill events in the 400m hurdles and the triple jump.

Personal bests performances were also recorded by Tim Elsey in the 1500m and Blade Ashby in the high hurdles, while Gavin Johnson Assoon treated himself to two personal bests, one competing as a scorer in the javelin and another as a non scorer in the discus, beating scoring B string athlete, team captain Garry Power into the bargain.

Peter Phillips, Sarwar Khan and AJ Boyce were welcomed to the team for their first experience of BAL scoring competition, while Dele Onifade, Jonny Henderson, Andrew Donno and Sam Parsons all played their own very important part in the team success.

In the final event, a 4x400m relay, the team of Toby Adeyemi, Michael Dyer, Sam Parsons and Peter Phillips were unable to hold the lead for the whole race, their fourth place was achieved with one of the club’s fastest times in this event for some while and ensured that HHH ended the day as well deserved match winners.