Herne Hill Harriers got their national track and field campaign off to a promising start last weekend after placing second in the opening fixture of the men’s British Athletics League (BAL) and an excellent match win in the UK Women’s League.

The Harriers also kept their title hopes very much alive in the Southern Men’s League with a solid second place finish.

It was an all round team effort which secured second place for the Harriers in match 1 of the BAL (Division 2), whilst recording event wins in the high jump and discus.

Thomas Ashby and Ashley Ralph were clear winners in the latter event with throws of 47.74m and 40.74m respectively.

But it was the Harriers’ magnificent win in the 4 x 400m relay which stole the limelight. Sammy Croll-Mensah, Nicholas Atwell, Toby Adeyemi and Peter Phillips ran a time of 3.15.53 in the race, smashing, in the process, a club record that has stood for over 20 years.

Team manager, Geoff Jerwood said: “Pride of place must go to our 4 x 400m relay team, who rewrote a good club record that has stood since 1985 with a magnificent win against strong opposition to claim our only track win of the afternoon in the final event to send us away happy on the journey home.

“The club record which had been 3.16.8 was shattered as the team time here was 3.15.53 and if given less windy weather this quartet could bring this time down further still in our remaining matches.”

Match 1 of 4 results: Team Score 1 Exeter 350 2 Herne Hill Harriers 338 3 Southend 292 4 Notts AC 287.5 5 Thames Valley Harriers 272 6 Basingstoke 220.5 7 Trafford 208.5 8 Derby 207.5

At Kingsmeadow, the Harriers’ blew away the opposition in the opening fixture of the UK Women’s League (Division 3) with a match win by a margin of 60 points.

As with the Harriers’ BAL team the day before, the best was saved for the final event of the day, the 4 x 400m relay.

The quartet of Jess Knight, Adelle Tracey, Hannah Edwards and Katie Snowden ran 3.52.60 beating the previous club senior women's record by almost 4 seconds. The fastest time recorded by a quartet aged under-20 before this performance was 4.12.0.

Other highlights include convincing wins in the 800m race, with Katie Snowden running 2.07.83 and Adelle Tracey in 2.16.76. Cathy Ansell comfortably won the 1500m race in 4.40.70 and the 3000m race in 9.52.76.

Visit the Herne Hill Harriers website on www.hernehillharriers.org for a full match report.

Match results: Team Score 1 Herne Hill Harriers 256 2 Reading 196 3 Liverpool 188 4 Crawley 161 5 Channel Islands 160 6 Belgrave 159 7 Leeds 129 8 Coventry 93

In the southern men’s league, the Harriers finished in second place, which puts the club fourth in the league overall and still in contention for the title and promotion push.

Sam Knight had a busy afternoon winning the 5000m b-string race in a personal best of 16.35, as well a new personal best in the pole vault with a jump of 1.10m.

At the other end of the scale, 52 year old Akin Oyediran ran 19.8 for the 110 hurdles and achieved a remarkable 12.96m in the triple jump.

Robert Glanville recorded a win in the javelin in 42.48m.