Hercules Wimbledon round-up: Senior men secure another Surrey League Cross-Country title

Hercules Wimbledon’s senior men made it four Surrey League Cross-Country titles in five campaigns thanks to a comfortable second place finish in the final fixture of the 2023-2024 campaign at West Horsley Place on Saturday, writes George Mallett.

The Wimbledon Park-based club won by just less than 300 points from Belgrave Harriers, with a total of 814 points from the four fixtures to the latter’s 1,101 and have now won three titles on the bounce.

With a lead of over 350 points heading into the final fixture in truth the league victory was likely well sewn up already but, by scoring 241 to Belgrave’s 189, Hercules concluded a campaign largely hinged on two dominant wins in fixtures two and three.

Hercules were led home on the day by James Stockings in an impressive third place, good enough to move him up to fourth in the individual rankings, narrowly behind Henry Silverstein, whose ninth place in West Horsley secured him the final podium position.

Stockings improved in every fixture, finishing 27th, 14th, 10th and third with Silverstein taking his own second top-10 finish.

Alex Sutton has continually improved throughout the season, moving from outside the scoring 10 in 47th in fixture one to third of the Hercules counters on Saturday, just behind Silverstein in 10th.

Fred Slemeck made it 35 career top 20s in 16th, seven seconds ahead of Ed Mallett in 17th. Charlie Wyllie was 27th, two days after finishing second in the Armagh Open 3km in Northern Ireland in a very impressive 8:32.

Hercules have a tradition that every scorer throughout the campaign – should they be successful overall will receive an honorary pint glass noting the league title – and plenty came into the final fixture hoping to score for the first time.

Three came in quick succession.  Oli Carrington bounced back from injury troubles to finish 36th, with Sam Todd and Ryan McCallister also earning themselves a pint glass with a 40th and 41st place finish respectively.

That made it 20 different scorers contributing throughout the season for Hercules.

Eoin Brady rounded out the scoring in 42nd.

Hercules secured the U13 title with Theo Creed taking the individual crown. Creed was a clear winner at West Horsley, only days after winning London Schools silver, an event which also saw Otelia Garcia-Davis and Isabella Harrison earn a Hercules one-two in the junior girls race. Alexandra Bramwell was sixth in that same race.

Creed was backed up, as ever, by James Fraser in fourth. Cyrus Sheikh was 10th with Thomas Hennigan 18th, Tomasso Crosara 21st and Fredric Bolton 25th.

Thomas Whorton had a superb weekend at the National Indoor Championships in Sheffield. On the Saturday he ran 2:06.17 over 800m to win his U15 heat before regrouping on Sunday to run a PB by two seconds to take silver. His 2:03.31 is the second quickest by any in his age group in the country this year.

PICTURE: HERCULES WIMBLEDON