The Hampshire league may be a bit misnamed, it is organised by Hampshire Athletics Association, but athletes from Surrey, Berkshire, Dorset, IOW and the Channel Islands compete alongside their Hampshire counter parts.
This leads to a very competitive and very tough competition. The Hampshire Athletes and their performances are monitored by HAA during the season, and their performances are utilised to pick the Hampshire County Representative team.
This will be a tough League for Robbie, not only is it very competitive but he will be running in the bottom age group, competing in the U13’s at 11 years old.
The Hampshire League comprises of 5 individual races, the results of which are fed in to an overall individual results table and an overall team results table.
- Race 1 – Farley Mount – 7th
- 08/10/2011
This first Hampshire League race introduces some names that become very familiar over the next few years. Daniel Cooke, now running for Camberley, Piers Copeland running for Wimborne and Matt Rawlings running for Reading are just a few.
| Place | Time | Runner | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 11’19” | Piers Copeland | Wimborne |
| 2 | 11’24” | Isaac Farnworth | Reading |
| 3 | 11’25” | Tom Verney | City of Portsmouth |
With James Fleming in 4th, a great first race at u13’s for him, Daniel Cooke in 6th, Harry Grace (AFD) in 7th. Robbie finishing in 9th, 3 seconds in front of 10th place Matt Rawlings.
- Race 2 – Goodwood – 12th
- 12/11/2011
| Place | Time | Runner | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 11’04” | Piers Copeland | Wimborne |
| 2 | 11’12” | James Fleming | Camberley |
| 3 | 11’16” | Matt Rawlings | Reading |
Sean Pocknee finished for AFD in 5th place, Robbie finished in 12th and Harry Grace finished for AFD in 13th. Just a few of the AFD athletes in attendance.
- Race 3 – Popham Airfield, Basingstoke – 16th
- 03/12/2011
Hampshire League 2011/12 Race 3
The third race in the series saw a new face for AFD, one that will become very familiar and will frequently be associated with winning.
| Place | Time | Runner | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 9’56” | Jack Boswell | AFD |
| 2 | 10’02” | Piers Copeland | Wimborne |
| 3 | 10’15” | Issac Farnworth | Reading |
Sean Pocknee was 2nd in for AFD in 4th place and Robbie was 3rd right down in 16th. Beat on the day by a number of familiar names.
- Alex Rowe (Guernsey) – 6th
- Daniel Cooke (Camberley) – 9th
- Matt Rawlings (Reading) – 11th
- James Fleming (Camberley) – 13th
- Archie Ives (Winchester) – 15th
- Race 4 – King’s park, Bournemouth – 4th
- 14/01/2012
Well 2011 didn’t give much to Robbie’s results or performances. The league was always expected to be hard, but many of Robbie’s contemporaries stepped up to the task with greater success than he did himself, this is the first event of 2012, let’s hope we can start to see an improvement.
| Place | Time | Runner | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8’02” | Piers Copeland | Wimborne |
| 2 | 8’10” | Sean Pocknee | AFD |
| 3 | 8’08” | Luke Powell | Southampton |
Robbie completed the race as the second AFD runner and with his best performance to date in the Hampshire League, finishing 4th in 8’32”, 1 second ahead of Matt Rawlings. Familiar rivals James Fleming and Daniel Cooke of Camberley finished 10th and 12 respectively and future Hampshire team mate Archie Ives finished in 15th place.
- Race 5 – Hudson’s Field, Salisbury – 9th
- 11/02/2012
The final race of the series, with AFD getting some exceptional results in other age groups the team events are looking good across the board.
| Place | Time | Runner | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10’48” | Jack Boswell | AFD |
| 2 | 11’10” | Piers Copeland | Wimborne |
| 3 | 11’14” | Sean Pocknee | AFD |
3rd in for AFD finishing in 9th place with a time of 11’24”, with Luke Powell beating him by 1 second in a tight finish that saw only 5 seconds between Robbie and 4th place.
Some names and positions to mention.
- James Fleming (Camberley) – 10th
- Matt Rawlings (Reading) – 11th
- Harry Grace (AFD) 12th
- Archie Ives (Winchester) 14th
- Lawrence Gilfrin (AFD) 16th
Overall Standings.
Individual
The overall individual standings are calculated by taking each runners best 4 results and adding them together, the lowest score wins.
| Place | Points | Runner | Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | Piers Copeland | Wimborne |
| 2 | 14 | Sean Pocknee | AFD |
| 3 | 21 | Tom Verney | City of Portsmouthey |
On the medal front, 1 gold medal is issued, 1 silver medal is issued and 4 bronze medals are issued. So joining Tom Verney for Bronze medals were James Fleming, Matt Rawlings and Tom Bourne. Robbie missed out on an Individual medal placing 6th overall.
Team The Team event is based on the Team position for each race, added together to create a score. There are no dropped results in the team section, so all team positions for all races count. The lowest score wins.
The Hampshire League Winning Team.
The athletes that represented AFD throughout the League in the U13’s were; Billy Smith, Chris Snook, Harry Grace, Zac Ayers, Jack Boswell, James Hier, James Pocknee, Lawrence Gilfrin, Robbie Coupland, Reece Webber, Sam McCready, Sean Pocknee, Tom Galloway, Tom Potter and Will Passmore. All of whom helped to contribute to the overall success of the club in this event. A total of 129 different athletes competed in the U13 boys section.
| Place | Points | Team | Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | AFD | 1,1,1,1,1 = 5 |
| 2 | 18 | Winchester | 4,3,5,3,3 = 18 |
| 3 | 19 | Reading | 2,7,2,2,6 = 19 |
Quite astounding to see AFD not only winning the U13 Boys overall event, but in fact winning the team event in every single race.
AND FINALLY !!!
Robbie’s position of 9th, was sufficient to get him selected for the Hampshire County Cross Country Team. Awesome job.