Athletics 12 (1969)

The season was a successful one in that our main annual objective - the winning of the Twickenham Cup at the county meeting - was fulfilled. This win establishes St. Nicholas as the foremost athletics school in the County for the second year running, although the way in which Wood Green School perform in all but the Senior section bodes ill for the future. 

In addition, we regained the St. Nicholas Shield which had been in rivals trophy cabinets since 1963 and Hampton's win in the Bowles Cup at Hendon showed, in retrospect, what a very good performance this was. The Seniors also retained the Borough of Hillingdon Cup, held without a break since is inception, were runners-up in the Bowles Cup and won the Group trophy for the fifth successive year.

The Intermediates retained the Group Trophy and Henderson Trophy, were rather unluckily pushed into the runners-up position in the Borough Championships, and finished fourth at Hendon, The Juniors, starting badly as usual, were unplaced in the Borough but finished second in the Sherrington Trophy, the School's best-ever placing, and fourth in the Junior Shield at the County meeting

Our first-years turned up trumps when we needed them most. After returning pointless from the last four County meetings in the Minor Section, we finished second this year and the ten points our athletes scored ensured that the Twickenham Cup returned to Northwood,

It may seem difficult to justify in the light of the above successes the overall feeling that the season was a disappointing one yet this impression remains. We had high hopes of a successful senior relay team but one by one our sprinters went down with hamstring trouble and we were rarely able to run our best team: our bset individual athlete, P. Goulding, suffered a cartilage injury early on which put him out for the season: for the first time in the School's history we had no representative at the All-England Championships; and whereas, at last year's County Meeting our athletes performed well above themselves to win the County cup against expectations, this year. when we expected to walk away with it, below-par performances, particularly in the Senior Section, meant that we had to sweat it out until the last event on the programme had been decided.

As usual, however, abiding memories of the athletics season will be of individual performers and performances; Sean Hughes last-vault win in the pole vault at Hendon to clinch a hat-trick of County titles - a test of character if ever I saw one: Barker's last-gasp victories over Edwards (Harrow Co.) in the Daffern Shield and Warby in the School Sports: Arkey's moral victory in the Borough 800 metres: Knowles' steady improvement in the steeplechase, culminating in a great run at Hendon: Wickison giving a much-needed look of respectability to the School Javelin record: Lovett's run in the School mile and Manners' in the 1500 metres in the Grammar Schools': Veal's promising sprinting: Downing's absolute consistency: Johnson's "breakthrough" in the Old Boys' match and again in the Daffern Shield: Hermelin's dedication to his own personal barrier in the high jump during P.E. lessons: and lastly our Minor quartet's tremendous win in the relay final at Hendon from a seemingly hopeless position at halfway.

P. J. CAHILL