Captains Log 19th December 2023
Hooray! Didn’t we do well? Wrekin Orienteers are West Midlands League Champions after a wait of 42 years since the other time we won, back in 1981. The headline news is up on the club website, so this is a more detailed report on our performance. It will make more sense if you have a look at the WM League results as well.
Our final score of 5750 points was 240 points ahead of second place. The 15 scoring members of the final team included six class winning, maximum 400-point scores and 9 others. Our lowest counting score was 348 points and we even had an individual class winner who didn’t count in our final team. That total and the final scores of at least another 8 Wrekin members might well have been enough to maintain our victorious position.
The points distribution shows how every run in every class can help the club score. 55 club members represented the club during the year – more than 50% of the club membership. Several people had good scores and only needed one more run to score in the team while others under-scored running out of class.
Your Club Captain asked people with maximum points to run up a class in the final couple of races leaving space for our other runners to score. The final team score included contributions from two mother-daughter and one father-daughter combination. Our youngest scorer is 11, our most senior 83. Overall, we did very well and our success wasn’t a fluke. If we can repeat the consistent attendance, we can be confident of putting up a good defence of our title next year.
Wrekin also hold the Laurie Bradley New Years Day Score Event Trophy which is the next team competition for us to compete in on January 1st 2024 at Pooley Park, Polesworth. Entries are almost full so get in quickly and see you there.
In between now and then there are runs up the Wrekin on Dec 23rd and around Rodington on Dec 30th. These will be fun events, if you like that sort of thing, which you probably do if you are reading this.
Wishing everyone a great time over Christmas and a happy New Year
Adrian Pickles
Wrekin Club Captain
19th December 2023
