Bedford Masters Men and Women made the journey to Thurrock on Saturday to contest the Eastern Masters League Final. The Women’s team having qualified for the first time in 20 years, a terrific result for a very small team.

The match started with the pole vault for both men and women and resulted in the Bedford competitors Bob Kingman, Simon Eastwood, Richard Phelan and Gemma Eastwood all winning their events, setting the team up for the rest of the day.

From that great start the Men’s Team was never headed with sterling support from all athletes. Everyone competed in multiple events, some covering events that they had not tried for many years, but there were still a few unfilled places due to holidays, work and injuries.

The Women’s team competed well but shortage of numbers meant they were always going to struggle.

Special mention must be made to Bob Kingman who was awarded the Men’s Field Best Performance Trophy for his 3.8m pole vault.

Congratulations to Bob Kingman on increasing his M50 pole vault record to 4.01m at the SAL in Sandy on 31 August 2025.

Congratulations to Helen Buller who set a new W45 5000m club record at the SAL in Sandy on 31st August with a time of 19 minutes 26.5 seconds. 

Many congratulations to Mia Flynn who jumped to number 3 on the UK U15 Hammer rankings with a massive throw of 49.95m at the Biggleswade Open Meeting on Saturday 23 August, improving her own club record by over two and a half metres.

Last Sunday 6 of the club's Masters Athletes were competing in York in the England Masters Inter Area Championships.

Our middle distance runners were out in force at the BMC at Trafford on Saturday.

In the 1500’s, Sam Knee-Robinson ran a PB of 3:51.04, whilst Sam Winters ran his second fastest time ever, recording 3:46.89. Ed Blythman was very unfortunate to be badly baulked with 150 to go, but still held on for a creditable time of 3:49.08.

In the 800, Alfie Yabsley, ran 1:55.43, after also running 1:55.56 in midweek at Loughborough.

In the 5000’s, Ben Alcock was very close to breaking 14 minutes again, with 14:00.43, and Ben Davies ran a very solid 14:32.36 in his first track 5000 for many years.

Joe Strange recorded 2:00.46 in finishing second in his race at Loughborough in midweek, but, perhaps more notably, when Joe ran 1:59.09 at Nuneaton in July, this constituted his 12^th consecutive year of recording a sub 2 minute 800 – quite an achievement.

Some of our athletes were in action at the England Athletics U15/U17 Championships this weekend:

Mia - 2nd English athlete Hammer
Archie - 6th English athlete 1500m S/C
Oliver - 7th English athlete 3000m
Fraser - 8th English athlete 1500m
Katy - 7th in her heat in the 100m

Well done to everyone who has competed over the last few days, and good luck to those competing tomorrow.

Bedford’s youngest athletes 4^th EYAL match took place at home. We scored 610 points – finishing 3^rd behind Havering and Stevenage.  We came away with 1 new Club Record set by Chloe K in the U17 W Pole Vault at 3.10m, 53 PBs (boys 22, girls 31) and 4 SBs for the girls. This result consolidated our 10^th position in the league.  Finishing in 10^th means we have qualified for the Plate Final on 07^th September in Thurrock.

Congratulations to Chloe Kingman who has set a new U17 pole vault club record of 3.10m at the EYAL today. 

Congratulations to Andy Blair who ran 19:06 in the Doug Anderson 5k on Wednesday, setting a new M60 5km Club record.