Surrey Cross-Country League Fixture 2 – Beckenham Place Park – Saturday 15th November 2025.
Words: Mark Tennyson, Photos: James Harvey and Daniel Wallis
Both the Senior Women and Senior Men continued their strong starts to Surrey League winter cross-country season with third place for the women and sixth place for the men.
Despite amber weather alerts and the threat of ‘Storm Claudia’ unleashing heavy rain in the days preceding the event, ground conditions were ‘soft’ but not excessively muddy. Both the women’s and men’s courses were shorter than the 6km & 8km advertised due to a huge festive ‘Winter Garden’ occupying part of the usual course.
Senior Women (3rd)
Suzie Monk led Guildford’s women to an excellent third place finish. Suzie in 9th and Evie Warren in 15th were the G’s first two scorers. This was Evie’s second race in four days as she had represented Surrey University at a LUCA XC event midweek. Katie Grinyer (18th) ran strongly on her first league race of the season and so did Eloise Bull (32nd) on her league debut for the G’s. Alice Cheng (59th) who was the G’s fourth scorer at match 1 ran very well on this occasion to close the 5-to-score team.
Isabel Wolfenden and Susanna Harrison (W60-1) were in reserve.
After two fixtures the women are fifth out of the fifteen teams and only fourteen points off Kent AC in third place.
Senior Men (6th)
The Senior Men battled hard for a sixth place finish to maintain their mid-table position also after two fixtures. Cam Reilly was first home for the G’s in 13th although he only passed his teammate Tom Foster (15th) yards before the finishing line. Tom had led the G’s charge for the vast majority of the race, whereas Cam had steadily worked his way through the field towards the front. It was a welcome return for Sebastian Anthony (2C, 21st). Seb’s last Surrey League XC was at Wimbledon in November ’22.
The race was hotly contested at the front, apart from race winner Jack Kavanagh who was thirty seconds ahead of second place, the next twenty-five athletes crossed the finish line within the next sixty seconds.
Next home for the G’s was Adrien Royer (31st) and then John Sanderson (43rd) and Alex Wright (57th). Both John & Alex considerably improved their race positions from match 1 and this moved Alex into the scoring ten. Nick Lightfoot (65th) and debutant Ed Brewer (66th) were the G’s next two scorers and were separated by only one race position. Will Ford (79th) and Ben West (114th) closed the 10-to-score ‘A’ team.
The G’s next ten of Mike Alwin, Rowan Hermes, Alex Friscia, Alex Ford, Ian Acreman, Neil Freeman-Jones, Mark Tennyson (M60-1), Terry Booth (M55-1), Matthew Reeves and Lee Lintern finished fourth ‘B’ team.
Ben Gilmore, Guy Holcroft, Kit Hawtin, Ben Harman, Ope Idowu, Phil Pryke, Robin Boon, Daniel Rosier, Andrew Flanagan, Charlie Alger, Paul Sanderson (M70-1) and Peter Wootton completed the G’s contingent from the large field of 323 finishers.
British & Irish Masters International XC – Leeds
Also on Saturday, Dave Williams had a brilliant run at an extremely muddy Roundhay Park, Leeds.
In finishing as the fourth placed individual M60, Dave led the Welsh team to bronze medals in this hotly contested event against the other four home-nations countries.
