The cross-country season finally came to a close last Saturday with the English Schools Cross-country at Wollaton Park in Nottingham. On what was a lovely March day, the top youngsters from all over the country descended on Nottingham for the annual running of this very high quality event.

LBAC had four representatives across two races with Jordan Clay in the Junior boys and Billy Mead and Stephen Fuller in the Inter boys. The schools competitions are deliberately set-up so that the two-year age groups don't match the club structure. This means that every year youngsters are top year for either club or school. Each of 42 counties selects eight team members for each age group and the top six make up the scoring team.

This time around, Jordan Clay was in the top year and part of a pretty strong junior boys team for Bedfordshire, who are one of the smallest counties in the country. Out of the 331 finishers Jordan finished 176^th and was 5th man home for Bedfordshire which helped them to 11^th overall and 1^st category C (Less than 60,000 chldren) county.

In the Inter boys race, Stephen had a cracking run to come home 6^th for Bedfordshire in 205^th out of the 320 finishers and help them to an outstanding 7^th place overall. Billy, who has excelled recently on the mud of Wing and Alton Towers did not suit the fast flat conditions of Wollaton and came home in 280^th place. However, it should also be mentioned that the racing is very intense indeed as Billy was only 25 seconds behind Stephen, but 75 places!

It is great achievement by all of them to be out representing the county and so they should all be congratulated.