58 club members toed the line for the 2026 5000m and 3000m championships.
Three 5000m and a junior 3000m race were held in an uplifting and entertaining evening on the club track.
Before the racing started, a special memorial bench to club coaching legend Taff Heir was unveiled by Barry Smith.
Barry spent many hours during the sixties and seventies coached by Taff, on what was then a grass track at the club
His bench is close to the spot Taff’s distinctive Welsh tones boomed out across the Manor Abbey Sports Ground and beyond!
Barry was also the former Halesowen club mile record holder.
His time of 4:08.0 stood from 1966 until last year, when Joe Rogers ran a time of 3:59.64 to become HACC’s first sub-four minute miler.
The main photo above shows two club legends pictured under the life members board, to which Joe’s name has recently been added.
First race on the track was the 3000m race for junior athletes, ran over eight and a half laps.
Ed Bates took an early lead and with Kian Hazelwood and Theo-Lee Carpenter, the group of three stayed together for most of the race.
Kian surged ahead in the closing stages, and crossed the line over six seconds clear of Ed in second.
Olive Thomas had some help from Sam Vince on the way, but ran most of the race alone to take the women’s title.
“The race was not as easy as the 800m, there were way too many laps!”, Kian told Radio Halesowen Town.
“It was nice to run against my friends and teammates who put up a good challenge.”
The first 5000m race full of 14.25 laps of fun (!) was the C race and after a cagey and tactical start, Jamie Sircom broke clear with four laps to go.
But he was reeled in on the last lap by Gavin Fereday who took the win with Matt Wilkinson Sr pipping Jamie on the line for second place.
EIlish James was the first female athlete.
The B race saw Jess Dale set the pace along with Sam Pugh.
Sam eventually prevailed to finish four seconds ahead of Jess, with Roger Mallard powering through to take third.
The main event, the A race, was won by Joe Rogers.
It was another tactical race, with Joe joined at the front of the field by James Thomas, Alex Taylor, Peter Dear and Dan Tsegay, who was going for a hat-trick of wins.
Joe, Peter and Dan took on the last lap burn up and it was only in the last 100 metres that Joe broke clear of Peter Dear to claim the title in 16:04.4.
Alex Taylor was third.
Speaking to Radio Halesowen Town, Joe praised the efforts of his fellow runners.
“It was an honest pace from the start”, Joe said.
“It was a nice group all the way up to 4k and then in those last few laps, James Thomas was really winding it up and it was just a big burn up in the last 500 metres..
“I had to go quite early and just had the legs on the rest of the field in the last 100.
“We’ve got a really, really good group of 5k runners at the moment.
“The club’s in a really rich run of form with so many sub-16 5k runners.
He added: “The atmopshere tonight was amazing.
“It’s quite unique. We have this and the Boxing Day handicap run and it makes you very appreciative to be from Halesowen.”
Phoebe Dodd and Lucy Hellingsworth represented the ‘Owen ladies, with Lucy’s solo effort seeing her claim her first senior title in 18:34.5.
Lucy said: “The first few laps were really fast and I tried to stick for it for as long as I could.
“It was really hard but was a good race!”
Here are the results from all four races:
JUNIOR 3000M: 12 runners
1st KIAN HAZELWOOD 10:04.7
2nd Ed BATES 10:11.1
3rd Theo LEE-CARPENTER 10:17.9
4th Olive THOMAS 11:05.6
5th Sam VINCE 11:14.5
6th Conlan McCCANN 11:27.5
7th Craig THOMPSON 11:33.8
8th Izabella FEREDAY 11:41.3
9th Samuel CROUCH 11:42.3
10th Isabelle WILKINSON 11:45.3
11th Grace FOLLOWS 12:00.5
12th Astle SMITH 12:48.5
5000M C RACE: 13 runners
1st Gavin FEREDAY 24:12.6
2nd Matt WILKINSON (Sr) 24:20.0
3rd Jamie SIRCOM 24:20.4
4th Richard ROBERTS 24:33.9
5th Andy NOCK 24:36.7
6th Richard GUEST 25:01.1
7th Matt ALLEN 25:16.7
8th Eilish JAMES 25:27.0
9th Karen THOMPSON 25:35.8
10th Gemma GOODE 25:40.5
11th Isabel FOGLIATTI 26:48.9
12th Adrian DALE 27:21.2
13th Zoe FEREDAY 28:06.7
5000M B RACE: 16 runners
1st Sam PUGH 19:31.0
2nd Jess DALE 19:35.2
3rd Roger MALLARD 19:40.0
4th Andrew SAKER 20:27.7
5th James PARKER 20:46.0
6th Milly ALLEN 21:13.8
7th Mo CUSWORTH-YAFAI 21:22.9
8th James LUDLOW 21:25.9
9th Andy FREEMAN 21:27.4
10th Glynn ARGUST 21:29.0
11th Mel HEPKE 21:37.5
12th Simon THOMPSON 21:42.2
13th Alex MORGAN 21:51.7
14th Steve HORTON 22:07.8
15th Bill NOCK 23:14.2
16th Sally SPENCER 25:34.0
5000M A RACE: 17 runners
Final lap video of 5000m A race courtesy of Joe Donkin
1st Joe ROGERS 16:04.4
2nd Peter DEAR 16:06.6
3rd Alex TAYLOR 16:09.3
4th James THOMAS 16:16.8
5th Dan TSEGAY 16:20.7
6th Matt WILKINSON (Jr) 16:49.7
7th Paul BRADLEY 16:51.0
8th Lee NEAL 16:51.3
9th Ethan JORDAN 17:03.3
10th James HOULT 17:14.0
11th Joe CLARKE 17:41.1
12th Ben RUSSELL 17:49.1
13th Rob McWILLIAMS 18:05.5
14th Oliver DODD 18:28.9
15th David LEWIS 18:31.4
16th Lucy HELLINGSWORTH 18:34.5
17th Phobe DODD 18:48.0
Huge thanks go to Mark Hadley for his hard work in organising an event which once again, attracted a record number of entries!
He was supported by a big team of race officials and volunteers without whom the event just could not happen.
These include Paul Allen, Mick Deakin, Maurice Endacott, Graeme Gill, Kathryn Griffths, Jo Gill, Steve Millington, Matt Pugh and all those who helped throughout the evening.
And a special mention to Ollie “Spiderman” Dodd, who was to be found minutes before the start of the event climbing up the hammer cage to retrieve an errant implement!
Race commentary and interviews with the race winners from Radio Halesowen Town can be found on the video below,
Finally, we received a message from Barry Smith the morning after the event.
He said: “Thank you for your help in setting up Taff’s bench and thanks for making me so welcome tonight.
“I am so pleased to see some of my contemporaries.
“It was really great to see club so vibrant. Keep up the fantastic work.”
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