HAVOC placed fifth in the SE heat of the Compass Sport Trophy

24th Feb 25

HAVOC competed in the SE qualifying heat of the Compass Sport Truphy, at Epping East, against CHIG, DFOK, LOK, NOR, SAXONS, SOS and SUFFOC.

This is a great technical area of runnable beech woodland, but if you loose touch with the map it can be hard to relocate.  Obviously, Epping is a fairly local area for us, and after having an amazing 27 HAVOC competitors at CHIG’s January Epping event, we were hoping for a strong showing in our Trophy match.  Unfortunately, 4 of our best runners couldn’t make the Compass Sport event, but we still managed to field an impressive team of 20 runners.

Eight clubs were contesting the Compass Sport Trophy on the day (of which we were the smallest), with the top 4 teams qualifying for the final.  We did manage a very creditable 5th place (beating, CHIG, LOK & SUFFOC).  To be honest, it would have been very hard to beat one of the top 4 clubs (SAXONS, NOR, DFOK & SOS), who are all much bigger clubs, and they all fielded strong teams.  The good news is that a few years ago we used to struggle to fill the 13 scoring slots, and were competing to avoid the last places.  This year we fielded a relatively large team, even with a few people missing or injured, and it was clear we could get at least 5th place, and challenge the big 4.

Well done to everyone who competed for the club, even if you didn’t manage one of the 13 top scores on the day, and in particular those people who ran up to longer courses to ensure we could maximise the scoring slots (Mike, David, Graham, Paul, Jenny & Amelie). 

Sometimes you can worry if it’s worth competing if there are 2 other faster HAVOC runners already competing on your course, but we do need everyone, particularly as we had 3 retirements on the day, and one person who ran the wrong course!  Thanks also to Zbig Gebka who booked a local pub for a post event social drink and meal.

Our scorers were:

We also had runs from Ted Coday, Graham Batty, Chris Brolly, Dale Bennett, Chris Sahw, Barbara Beckett, Amelie Maule-Lidbury