THERE was a return to cross country action this week for athletes from Dudley Kingswinford Running Club.

Both the men and ladies travelled to Leamington Spa to start their league campaigns with the men competing in the Birmingham & District League and the ladies in the West Midlands League.

For the men it would be a challenging season. After gaining promotion as Division Three champions they had lost three of their major players of last season and a fourth of their big scorers was taking time off to recover from injury.

It was left to last season’s B team to step up and perform in the rarefied altitude of Division Two.

Richard Bate was first home for the A team in 83rd place in 43.06, Dave Norman was 113th in 44.19, Darran Bishop was 123rd in 44.41, Rob Sannwald was 131st in 45.00, Simon Hughes was 136th in 45.28 and Daren Thompson completed the scorers in 137th in 45.32.

Simon Blizzard led the B team home in 142nd in 45.38, Andy Sprague was 150th in 45.53, Mark Homer was 154th in 46.02, Steve Wood was 170th in 47.08, Mark Judge was 187th in 48.24, Richard Jones completed the B team in 215th place in 51.12 just holding off Sergej Ljubovnikov in 217th in 51.16.

Andy Weaver came home in 52.59 for 238th place and John Andrews was 269th in 59.26.

With one fixture completed from the 4 league races DK are nicely placed in 13th position in a league of 17, and the possibility of maintaining their second division status isn’t looking as unrealistic as it did at the start of the afternoon.

The ladies were also competing in Division Two of their respective league with Helen Tromans finishing in an impressive 32nd place in 27.48, Karen Doy was 83rd in 31.34 taking a one – nil lead from her rival Lyn Sprague who came home in 98th in 32.38, Jacqui Elson-Whittaker was 125th in 34.44, Deborah Smith finished in 36.01 in 137th place, Lisa Hadlington was 164th in 38.15, Cilla Harding was 179th in 40.36 and Sarah Krivosic was 203rd in 42.27.