• NEW COMPOSITE TEAM FOR TRACK AND FIELD
    Frustrated at not being able to challenge for promotion during the 2007 season, the male athletes of Colchester Harriers and Colchester & Tendring decided that neither team was strong enough separately, and investigated the possibility of combining forces.
    Both teams were competing in the same league, and both faced the same challenges. A small number of keen and dedicated athletes and officials were trying to perform to their best in their own specialities, but also having to try to cover other events ‘just for the point’.
    Given their similar problems, the athletes questioned the sense, and sustainability of having two independent teams in the town, both striving for the same thing i.e. performing to their best both as athletes and as teams.
    The respective committees were approached, and both gave their support to creating a ‘Colchester United’ team to compete in the Southern Men’s Track and Field League for 2008.
    We shall now be in a position where we have doubled the amount of athletes and officials we can call on for matches. This should mean athletes can concentrate on performing to their best in their chosen events, and we have more specialists for each event. With a larger and deeper pool of athletes, we should be able to cope better with the inevitable dropouts due to injury, illness, holiday, representative matches etc.
    In these ‘green aware’ days we also don’t have the situation of two teams from the same town travelling to two different venues on match days.
    For uniformity, and to reduce costs we have decided to share the same pale blue vests that have been chosen for the new ‘Team Cobra’ junior team, recently set up for very similar reasons to our own.
    The previous management of both teams will now combine to decide on selection. We will need the co-operation of the athletes to be able to tell us of their availability and preferences of event so that we can plan and field our strongest team.
    Don’t worry if you don’t think you will be good enough to be A or B string, because for the reasons I have stated above, we will need at least 4 athletes per event to cover for unavailability. If we can achieve this strength in depth so that if people drop out we still have good replacements, we will progress up the leagues, and keep improving ourselves and the quality of competition we are against.
    We are excited by the opportunity this new composite team gives us to add impetus again to our rise up the divisions. It will also show to people inside and outside athletics, that our two clubs can work successfully together.
    Please show your support for this new venture, by competing, officiating, or just coming to watch.

    Peter West and Rob Earle
  • Notice to Track and Arena Users : Napier Road is closed until May. We’ve got the road relays on the 6th April so people need to be aware that they will have to use a different route to the track.
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