Ampthill X/Country Trophy

 Sunday 26th September 2003

The Ampthill Trophy – How it Began Again

Following the success of the re-launched Flitwick 10K the committee felt it would be a good idea to put on another event to keep interest up and to raise the profile of the club even further.

The idea of a cross country event using Ampthill park seemed a good one as we already had useable courses and the contacts to make it relatively easy.  The decision was taken to set the date just before the cross country season started to try to promote it as a warm up.

The name came about as a ‘tribute’ to the old Beefeater Trophy events which, we hoped, would attract runners with fond memories of those races.

Keith and I once again stepped up to the mark as organisers with Keith as director and myself as race entries and secretary. Phil Bierton took on the mantle of setting up the courses based loosely on the Beefeater ones and provided much needed IT support.  Unfortunately we had to avoid, the much loved, Breakheart Hill as it was becoming excessively eroded

We decided to keep the event very low key as we had little time to organise it.  I designed an entry form, which Keith ran off at work, placed an advert in Runners World and put entry forms on the windscreen of every car at every event we went to. We then sat back to see if anyone would bite. We had no sponsorship and no fund to call on and expected to be lucky to break even.

Entries were very slow to come in and with a week to go we called off the junior race as there were only 3 entrants all from one family (the Drinkwater boys).

On the day we took enough entrants to double the postal entry and had a total of just under 50 runners.

We made a very small profit due to the sale of teas and bacon butties but it launched what is now a successful season opener.

Wendy Kent

Ladies 

1

Sarah Thomson

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

2

Caroline Gilby

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

3

Cherie Hart

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

4

Allison Ratcliffe

Milton Keynes AC

5

Zoe Dawson

Biggleswade AC

6

Victoria Adams

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

7

Jackie Edwards

Unattached

8

Christine Sharp

North Herts Road Runners

9

Lynne Murray

Unattached

10

Chris Ryder

Unattached

11

Justina McLennan

Vegetarian Cycling & Athletic Club

12

Justine Goode

Unattached

13

Susan Wright

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

Men

1

Tom May

Leighton Buzzard AC

2

Dave Brown

Unattached

3

Tim Harris

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

4

Stephen Hartley

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

5

Steve James

Beds & County

6

Adrian Wadsworth

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

7

Mark Smith

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

8

Andy Bierton

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

9

Steven Millington

Halesowen AC

10

Ian Owens

North Herts Road Runners

11

Neil Gregory

Biggieswade AC

12

Tony Cole

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

13

Kevin Millington

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

14

Graham Busch

Stopsley Striders

15

Andy Page

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

16

Zac Hollis

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

17

Damien Pitts

Biggleswade AC

18

Morris Dempster

Unattached

19

Chris Priestley

North Herts Road Runners

20

Graham Short

Bedford Harriers

21

Paul Mason

Milton Keynes AC

22

Steve Smith

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

23

Paul Taylor

Vegetarian Cycling & Athletic Club

24

Gary Fuller

Bedford Harriers

25

Paul Campbell

Unattached

26

Michael Chance

Milton Keynes AC

27

Cohn Bennetts

Bedford Harriers

28

John Adam

Leighton Buzzard AC

29

lan Mcintosh

Unattached

30

Robert Boss

North Herts Road Runners

31

lan Cousins

Stopsley Striders

32

lan Sharp

North Herts Road Runners

33

Paul Bowal

North Herts Road Runners

34

Rob Cook

Ampthill & Flitwick Flyers

Last Updated: Sunday, 28 October 2007 08:30