The first of this season’s Sussex Cross Country league fixtures took place adjacent to Goodwood racecourse and saw over 600 runners compete across the various age groups. The Blue Stars best team performance came in the Under 15 Boys race run over a 4k course, where the team were led home in 7^th place by Charlie Ferris who had a good run to finish in 15m03s, he was closely followed by Reuben Marsden who also ran well finishing in 10^th place (15m27s) and with newcomer Alex Power running 16m06s to take 25^th place, the team finished in an excellent 4^th place of the 18 competing teams. Also in this age group Jesse Mackarel finished 27^th (16m08s), Dominic Barber 32^nd (16m43s), Ed Cox 39^th (17m22s) and Ryan Rothe 42^nd (17m43s).

There was another good team result in the Under 17 Men’s race, run over 5km, where Ash Williams ran well to finish in 8^th place (17m17s), he was followed by Sam Richards who had a strong run to finish close behind in 12^th place (17m42s) and with Tom Clark 25^th (20m07s) and Charlie Beckley 26^th (20m36s) the team finished in 5^th position. The Senior Men’s race, where over 140 runners toed the line, saw Luke Burgess run well to finish in 8^th place, running 26m30s for the 8km race, and with Harry Eaton finishing 19^th (27m42s), Andy Dunstan in 54^th (30m54s), closely followed by Dean Angell and Ryan Bowyer in 57^th and 58^th places and Pete O’Connell 67^th the team took 7^th place in Division 1. Elspeth Turner lead the Team home in the Senior Women’s race having a good run to finish in 13^th place running 19m30s for the 5km race, with Lorraine Hayes finishing 59^th (22m42s) and Miranda Huisman 69^th (23m50s), the team took 7^th place.

Laurie Mackarel was the first Blue Star to finish in the Under 13 Boys race, running 13m01s for the 3km race which saw him finish in 31^st place, with Isaac Burt 36^th (13m06s) and Tom Hays (13m08s) the team finished in 12^th place. In the Under 13 Girls race, also run over 3km, Emma Harrison ran well to finish 28^th (14m26s). She was closely followed by Emily Oliver in 32^nd (14m41s) and with Alexander Pinder  41^st (15m23s) and Lydia Barnett, despite two falls, finishing 42^nd (15m30s) the team also finished in 12^th place.

This was a promising start to the season with a large number of athletes competing for the first time especially in the younger age groups.