Week Ending - 2025/11/16

WARREN: AMAZING RUN

Badgers legend Danny Warren produced a cross-country masterclass to lead his team home to a strong finish in the second round of the 2025/6 Derby Runner XC League. The Baddesley man is evidently back to his very best in his 39th year, and he ran a strong race in conditions that were as boggy as could be at the Bagworth Heath circuit in Leicestershire. He ended up a magnificent second place overall in his 50th cross country appearance for the club – a total only bettered by backfield runner Eamon Thawley, and gave his side a great start in the points competition. It was also the 50th time he has scored XC points for the club.

Next through was rising star Ryan Preece, looking to put an injury-hit 2025 behind him and come for the likes of everyone in 2026. He dug in to take a solid 13th place overall with a rampaging run. Veteran ace Adrian Payne was next through three spots later with another excellent effort on testing terrain. New skipper Glyn Broadhurst helped guide key man Chris Tweed through some tricky sections of woodland before putting the hammer down to end up 37th, while Tweed and new recruit to cross country Lee Taylor both made superb top fifty finishes. Matt Green battled hard to make the top 100, and Jim Cottom once again completed the scoring with another hard-fought run. 

The men’s team had back-up galore as David Grant led an all-star cast of athletes through the five-mile mud fest, new boy Dan Hilton impressed once again, showing great tenacity and the experienced David Craig and Wayne Fraser both performed well. Stefan Martin and the returning Paul Grubb put in quality shifts ahead of the recently radicalised Ashley Taylor. Marc Corbett, Dave Ash and the aforementioned Thawley rounded up the male action. 

The ladies were led home by the returning Liberty Underhill, who put in a gutsy run to finish a fine 12th overall in the field. She was backed up by strong showings from the likes of Stacey Horner in 22nd as well as the skipper Meg Griffiths in 29th before veteran Emma Masser bulldozed her way into the top forty with her first run for Badgers since 2019, a terrific effort. With all four scorers back so early, the team are well placed for a good season as things stand. 

Jane Barrett, Rachael Browne, Sara Wilson, Eve King and Ann-Marie Currier were all waiting in the wings behind Masser, ready to score in the event of a dropout or, perish the thought, fatality. 

In the junior race, brothers Dan and Tom Ash gave excellent accounts as they both ran strongly after a solid summer of consistent training.

The Derby 10 attracted a fistful of mud-shy Badgers, and it was none other than the born-again Dave Jackson who powered his way home to be the first Badger back in a sensational 64:01. The Atherstone-based tat-pedalling shifter earned himself a solid gold club standard for his effort and gave him his fastest 10-mile time since 2019. Neil Rose ran a hugely impressive 70:25 as he continues to take great strides forward, and Wayne Repton clocked a respectable 79:28, his fastest of 2025. 

Before him was the London-bound Bill Gutheridge, who continues to be a beacon of consistency over the distance with less than two minutes between his fastest and slowest times across his whole career. Here he managed a fine 73:58, a top effort from the V45 ace. Paul Cooper (85:36) and Rhys Hopwood (89:06) both ran wonderful races to go well inside the 90-minute mark, while seasoned campaigner Maggi Savin-Baden temporarily put her oven gloves to one side to bake a brilliant time of 1:40:42 and earn a gold standard in the process. Carl Ford’s improvement across 2025 cannot be underestimated, and here he weighed in with an enormous new PB of 97:14, almost a quarter of an hour quicker than his previous best. Sara Hawkins’ running is going from strength to strength, too, as she ran the second quickest 10 miler of her career with a time of 2:01:58.

Elsewhere, former school classmates and still Badger friends thirty-odd years later, Chris Horton and Serena Baker were both in action at opposite sides of the country. In Conwy, Wales, Baker tackled the half-marathon after a footwear faux pas, somehow getting the job done in an incredible two hours ten minutes. And in Sussex, Horton ran 36:00 in a stacked Brighton 10K, his slowest time since June 2024.

At parkrun, there was joy in the air at Sandwell Valley, where Megan Griffiths took first place (female) to join a select group of three other Badgers (Warren, Horton, and Keir Hardy) to have found success on the Black Country course, notorious for its horrific steep uphill approach to the finish. Glyn Broadhurst took third overall in 19:57, two seconds slower than Mark Repton, who was the quickest Badger of the day, taking 6th at Oaklands in 19:55. Other top ten efforts included Joanne Crow (8th at Barmouth), Adi Payne (2nd at Bosworth) and Suzy Farrell (5th at Coronation Park, Swadlincote).