Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club’s track and field team got off to a superb winning start to their summer Southern Athletics League programme at Norman Park, Bromley, on Saturday, to put their target for promotion on track, with a record-breaking match score, writes Tom Pollak.

Star of the team was all-rounder Mark Andrews who competed in no less than 11 events. Across five hours of exhausting hectic athletics, Andrews posted six wins, four second places and one third. His successes came in the triple jump A and high jump, pole vault, shot, hammer and javelin B events. He was also second in the 110 metres and 400 metres hurdles A races, the steeplechase A race and the javelin A competition. He was also third in the long jump A event.

Across the 11 events he contested Andrews, 30, who was making his Southern League debut for Hercules Wimbledon, and was ranked among the top 50 of UK decathletes last season, mustered 49 points, almost a third of the 152 gained by the entire men’s team.

Lance Power partnered him in the hurdles winning both B string events as well as winning the pole vault A and finishing second in the steeplechase B race.

On the day, the men’s side gained 19 wins and dominated the endurance events with maximum points in the 1500 and 5000 metres. Charlie Eastaugh and Andrew Thomas took the 1500m A and B races and David Lewin and Luke Davis won the 5000m A and B races. Eastaugh was also runner-up in the 800m with World Masters over 50 bronze medallist Dominic Bokor-Ingram taking the B race. Bogor-Ingram also finished third in the 400m A race.

Hercules Wimbledon gained maximum points in the triple jump with teenager Bryn Cann taking the B event after finishing third in the long jump B competition. Hercules Wimbledon also did well in the throws with Sam Hitchings winning the javelin A and hammer B events and taking third in the shot and then ran a leg for the 4x100m relay team which finished third.

Hamed Agboke was runner-up in the 400m B race and third in the 200m B before hoping Hercules Wimbledon win the final men’s event, the 4x400m relay, linking up with Charlie Eastaugh, Pete McLeod and Mark White.

Supervet Gina Galbraith and teenager Georgina Clarke secured maximum points in the women’s 3000m taking the A and B races, respectively. Another superset, Lisa Thomas won the steeplechase A and 400m hurdles B race and also finished third in the 1500m A race before running legs for the 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams which both finished third.

Team manager Heather Jones gained vital points winning the shot and hammer B events as well as taking second place in the javelin and finishing third in the discus A and long jump B as well as running legs for both relay teams. Ann Martin also had a busy time taking third in the shot and hammer A and discus and javelin B events.

At the end of the match, Hercules Wimbledon had gained a record score of 273 points beating the previous highest of 246 achieved in 2016. But, it was a close match as the squad got home by just 19 points. The team won both the track and field sections of the match.

Match result: 1 Hercules Wimbledon 273pts; 2 Guildford & Godalming 254; 3 Sutton & District 187; 4 Holland Sports & Dorking & Mole Valley 75.

On a windy and chilly South Coast, Kieran White was third over 40 veteran in the Brighton Marathon on Sunday in two hours 45 minutes 17 seconds and his Hercules Wimbledon clubmate Matthew Sharp broke the club over 40 record in the curtain raising Brighton 10km road race in finishing fourth in his age category in 32:35.

Elsewhere 21 Hercules Wimbledon runners were among the 500 in the Wimbledon Common 5km parkrun on Saturday. Teenager Lulu Weisz won the women’s race in a personal best of 19:58 with fellow teenagers Henry Silverstein and Sam Barker second and third in the men’s race also in personal bests of 16:58 and 17:01, respectively, with over 45 veteran Peter Collins fourth in 17:47.

Jonny Earl was runner-up in the Kingston event in a personal best of 15:51, just one second behind the winner, and improving on his previous best set last November by two seconds.

This weekend, Hercules Wimbledon’s youngsters are competing in the opening Lily B Girls League match at Ewell Court on Bank Holiday Monday, starting at 11.15am.