Schools cross country

It’s that time of year again, when what’s left of the Avon Schools AA committee swing into action to put out teams for the South West Championships and then English Schools.

Normally there would be the Avon championships when each race would end with letters being given out to top finishing athletes so that Lesley and her team could make selections and send out invitations to compete for the county. Except the Avon championships were cancelled. This was because the BGS games field where it was going to be held is really suffering under the weather and their groundsman couldn’t face the damage that would be done by over 300 young athletes and their parents.

The selection of the Avon team has been done – on the basis of the area championships and Power of Ten. Now letters have to be sent out to all the selected athletes – a job which Lesley always does.

But she didn’t have any of their addresses!!!!

Imagine the chaos on our dining table as she searches her records, emails and phones and generally badgers anyone she can think of to come up with 80+ addresses. As I write, there are still nine who could live anywhere. Schools are understandably a bit nervous about giving out students’ information, but most have bitten the bullet and told her what she needed to know.

One school, which had better remain anonymous, instead of answering Lesley’s questions, sent back a question about why someone completely different hadn’t been selected. Well – guess what? – she just wasn’t good enough.