Luton
Athletic Club

Luton AC was in action on Saturday in the 4^th round of this summer’s Southern Men’s League division 2. The match, held at Walton-on-Thames, was hosted by Guildford AC and included Walton, Metropolitan Police and Bournemouth, a club flying high in 2^nd place in the league and looking likely for promotion this season. Luton on the other hand is fighting for survival in this league, currently occupying 19^th of the 25 teams, with the bottom 5 destined for relegation to division 3. It was not long ago that Luton’s B team, now competing in division 4 north, were in division 3.

Luton’s team was again weakened by the un-availability of key athletes. Team Manager, Chris Stebbings, said "it is fair to say that the team has not travelled well this year. We will get a better indication of the clubs capabilities at the next match at home on July 14^th where we are more likely to field a near full strength squad. If we do we will most likely win the match and make our position safe for this season. If our strongest squad travelled we would be vying for promotion rather than fighting relegation".

Luton finally finished forth Saturday with Bournemouth runaway winners on 137 points, host club Guildford second on 112, Walton 3^rd 101.5, Luton on 92 and Met. Police last on 83.5 points. This maintained Luton’s 19^th position in the League, but only 1 point above the drop zone. The club have it all yet to do if they are to survive.

Despite the depleted team Luton athletes still produced some excellent performances and competed strongly throughout the day. Brothers Kyle and Craig Andrew made significant contributions with Kyle winning the 100m, 11.4, 200, 22.7, and he anchored the 4 by 100m relay team to victory before anchoring the 4 by 400m relay team to a close second. Craig on the other hand was creating personal bests in the Long Jump of 5 metres 89 centimetres for second place in the B string and 12 metres 29 centimetres for second place in the A string Triple Jump. This all before he ran a leg of the 4 by 400m relay.

He club enjoyed 2 double victories in the 100m and the 1500m. In the 100 Kyle was backed up by Andrew Bulleymore who won the B string event in 11.7 whilst in the 1500m Pete Bridger, making a welcome return to the team for 2007 after injury had rued him out so far, won the A string 1500 in 4 minutes 25.3 seconds closely followed home by Tim Harris, making his debut for the club in division 2, in 4 minutes 25.5 seconds for victory in the B string. Both Bridger and Harris only deciding to take it easy in the 1500 having both run in the 800m earlier in the afternoon where Harris won the A string in 1 minute 57.2 seconds and Bridger 2^nd I the B string in 1 minute 59.4.

Bulleymore also had a busy afternoon but a foot injury impeded his perfoamnces in the Long Jump, 3^rd in the A string with 6 metres 21 centimetres and 2^nd in the B string Triple Jump with a leap of 12 metres and 16 centimetres. Both of these performances are well below Andrew’s capabilities who is a 7 metre Long Jumper and 13 metre plus Triple Jumper.

Other personal bests on the day were set by Ricky Rasmussen in the Hammer Throw of 37 metres 52 centimetres and by Stuart Still in the 5000m where he ran 17 minutes 2 seconds.

Rasmussen had a busy afternoon competing in all the throws - Hammer, Shot, Javelin and Discus, and to show his versatility he also jumped in the B string High Jump, contributing a total of 9 points on the day. Ricky was ‘promoted’ to A string in the throws as Dave Burrell was on international duty. Geoff Grinsted stepped up to the division 2 match from normally competing in the Division 4 team. Geoff did all the throws adding a valuable 7 points to the tally.

Whilst dad Ricky was busy in the field Isaac Rasmussen ran a strong second place in the B string 200m in 23.7 seconds. Isaac later ran a leg in the 4 by 100m relay.

A welcome debut for the season was of Chris Kingshott in the Pole Vault. Chris showed that his development over the winter is paying off when he vaulted a fine second place with 3 metres 60 centimetres. Chris has vaulted 3.80 this year but it was not to be Saturday, narrowly missing out. Chris also rand the 100m hurdles.

A brace of valuable third places in the 400m metres came from Matt Blake in the A in 53.3 and Joshua Oguji in the B in 54.6, narrowly missing his personal best.

In the relays Luton almost scored maximum points when Kyle Andrew led the 4 by 100 team 2 victory, which included Blake, Bulleymore and Isaac Rasmussen. It was Kyle Andrew that also led home the 4 by 400m team to 2^nd, which included, yet again, Matt Blake, Craig Andrew and Joshua Ogunji.

The next match is at home for Luton on 14^th July at Stockwood Park, where they have to have a good match finish if they are to go to the final match of the year in Hemel Hempstead safe that they are going to survive in division 2 for another season.

Chris Stebbings