Braintree and District Athletic Club's Senior Men's team completed their season of six fixtures in Southern League division three with their final match, at High Wycombe.

There was a season's record turnout of 17 athletes for this fixture in which success would be double-barrelled as it would guarantee the team promotion to division two next year.

The opposition were Newquay and Par, North London, Southampton and the hosts Wycombe Phoenix.

The team applied themselves strongly despite the absence of key athletes Damien Hartshorne (holiday) and javelin thrower Dan Carter (at Loughborough University for a three-day team building camp with the 56-strong England Junior team and experts from the Institute of Youth Sport in preparation for their trip to the European Junior Championships in Riga, Latvia).

Early results set the tone for the bulk of the match as winning performance were not always assured but the overall picture was of steadily rising optimism.

The day's winners included team captain Leighton Green in all his sprint races, Clint Barrett in 110m hurdles B and Javelin B, Jon Hussain 400m, 200m B and spring relay, Colin Bryce 800m A and 400m B races, Steve Spear Long Jump B, Andrew Rose 100m B and sprint relay, Peter Coxhead Javelin A and Francis Malone-Lee 1500m A race.

There were other strong performances from John Bruns' Hammer and shot, Greg Brown's 3000m steeplechase 10m 24.4s PB and 400m Hurdles, Neil Treadgold's 1500m and 400m relay leg, Colin Joyce's 400m relay leg of 50.88s, Jake Buckland's 3.00m pole vault and Sam Grealy's 800m second place.

The sum total of these and all the other efforts by the squad produced the desired result -- a resounding victory and assured promotion.

The final score read Braintree 146 points, N. London 111.5, Wycombe Phoenix 108, Newquay 97 and Southampton 73.

Following Ipswich Harriers failure to secure a good result at Haringey where they were forced into third place by the hosts, Enfield & Haringey and Yeovil, Braintree's final league position was boosted to fourth place on 26 league points, to Ipswich's fifth on 25.

The obligatory dunking in the steeplechase water jump was the prelude to celebrations that lasted long into the night upon the team's return to Braintree.

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