Round 2 of the Surrey League is almost upon us, the 2nd fixture takes place on home turf for Wimbledon in one of their many back gardens. For the 2nd time this year the Wombles of Wimbledon will be postponing their weekend retreats into their country pads to go and do battle with clubs from almost as far away as the London suburbs. Unlike other fixtures, this one is very much in the comfort zone of the host club amongst their other pastimes where they ask athletes from other clubs to refrain from distracting the golfers when warming up or to upset the horse-riders. Advice no doubt likely to confuse the visiting contingent from Kent AC based in nearby Lewisham where the team are more used to horses appearing in lifts in their high-rise council flats and the only reference to golf being the late-night prank of a GTI going up in flames. Anyway, business is business and running is running and the first fixture saw the Wombles take a 30 point lead thanks to some inventive team sheet line-ups leaving the 'club of the people' with some work to do. Elsewhere it looks like a battle for 3rd has taken place between THH and the newly promoted Guildford and Goldalming who have upset the applecart this season by actually being from Surrey and getting off to a flyer in the first fixture. Belgrave are there (they always bloody are) sitting in mid table mediocrity along with the Dennis the Menace outfit. Croydon appear to have shot themselves in the foot and now have a mountain more challenging to climb than the route out of Eddie Kulukundis' deep pocket , so the remaining relegation spot looks to be a fight between South London and Ranelagh who arguably both have too much quality to go down, but that has been said before -just ask Newcastle. Belgrave could join the battle if/when the appearance money for the season runs out.
Individually the battle is about who turns up on the day, so we will have to see who turns out on the day on the opening charge across the golf course and down the dirt track. My money is on Galen Rupp suprising everyone, as for which club he will be running for -well watch this space.
Post race, England play New Zealand at 3pm Saturday, this gives ample opportunity for the Kent boys to follow Wimbledon to the pub (the ones who haven't ditched the XC in exchange for a box at Twickenham) and obstruct tv viewing of the last 20 minutes of the game and disecting the race alongside the game they have captured on the common to feed them for the week ahead.