The Club’s Senior Awards night for 2018 performances saw highly ranked GB international under 20 sprinter Charlie Dobson take the coveted Harriers Athlete of the Year. Dobson had a phenomenal year both indoors and outdoors culminating in him taking the silver medal in the IAAF under 20 World Championships held at Tampere, Finland in July, clocking an amazing 20.57s in the final, missing out on the gold medal by less than 1/10th of a second. Dobson ran 20.53s in the semi final which took him to the number two spot in UK 2018 under 20 rankings and number nine in the UK 2018 overall rankings ahead of athletes of the class of Richard Kilty who ran a seasons best of 20.67s at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.  

Dobson still turned out for the Harriers every time he could and clocked a superb 10.32s for the 100m at a British League Premier Division match at Hendon last August. His Coach Steve Garnham has worked miracles to bring Dobson to this peak of performance.

The other worthy winners were:

Field – Phillipa Davenall and Paul Cooper,

Track – Rebecca Jeggo and Charlie Dobson,

Road – Andrea James and Ed Mitchell,

Cross Country – Denise Morley and Simon Morgan

Most improved athletes – Lee Holohan and Jerry Walder. 

Lance Williams presented the trophies for the Chairman’s choice, which is awarded to members who have excelled in volunteering, the winners this year were John Hyland (endurance coach) and Jill Paxton (track judge).

The final award was the Jerry Everett trophy given to a club member who has been successful in a different event from the norm. This year the award went to Nathan Filer for winning the Harwich 24 hour race clocking 115 miles as well as achieving personal bests in other distances on road and track.