TOMMY Harrison led home the 21-strong squad of Blue Vests and took bronze the sixth round of the Central Lancashire Grand Prix midweek.

His improvement was illustrated by clocking 24mins 11secs for the 4.6 miles around Chorley’s Astley Park – 80 seconds quicker than last year.

The unrelated Walker juniors also returned, with Matthew – the youngest – being Bolton’s second finisher, whilst Scott Crompton’s Ironman exploits may have been responsible for teammate Simon Dally pipping him to the line.

Nicola Cartridge again reigned supreme, winning the women’s race in 28:56 – nearly 70 seconds quicker than 2015. Seasoned vet Paul Turner led the B team, having arrived in good time for the off, within which the junior female

pendulum swung again as Rachel Bailey finished ahead of Liv Kearney, while Michelle Philbin and Katie McNulty made their CLGP debuts.

The results all add up to Leigh becoming Bolton’s main challenger in the A team (albeit 700 points behind), while Burnden eroded the buffer in the B and Vets team standings to 500 and 100 respectively.

BUH&AC are now a solid second in the women’s table – just 60 points behind the same opponents.

Earlier in the junior race, Isabella Merritt (6:04) just edged Lily Philbin (6:15), with Oliver McNulty (6:19) and Sam Philbin (7:17) also completing.

BUH&AC times: Tommy Harrison 24:11; Matthew Walker 26:00; Simon Dally 26:15; Scott Crompton 26:17; Simon Walker 26:47; Pete Kearney 28:52; Nicola Cartridge 28:56; Paul Mills 29:14; James Rideout

29:35; Ken Fowler 29:54; Paul Turner 30:20; Nick Howarth 30:29; Stewart Brierley 31:04; Rachel Bailey 33:33; Olivia Kearney 34:13; Michelle Philbin 35:33; Katie McNulty 36:15; Adrienne Fisher 37:00; David Morrison 37:40; Gail Harrison 39:51; Ged Tucker 46:34;

The fourth and final fixture of the North of England 2WC Track and Field competition at Stretford took place in perfect conditions and the small squad produced some fine individual efforts.

These included Reinel Bonora’s 10.55m in the shot put (just 2cm off his PB), Jonny Kay’s 400m/800m winning double (51.0s and 1:56.3 respectively), and F60 Ilse Hemming’s all-round athletic ability on the track and in the field as she builds up to the Northern Masters championships.

Despite their best efforts, the Blue Vests finished third on the day, crucially behind Blackpool, Wyre and Fylde.

It means Blackpool (21 league points) head into the promotion play-off with the other Division Two winners at BUH&AC’s expense (19 league points), with only 25 cumulative match points the difference (equating to three uncontested event victories).