Quote Originally Posted by Travs View Post
After Birmingham University once again completely obliterated some very strong competition in the first Birmingham League fixture on saturday, a fierce debate erupted in the Godiva Car Park last night....

That of course being the appearance of university clubs in the various XC leagues.

Taking just one example from B'ham Uni.... the race winner, Will Barnicote, helped his club Aldershot get within seconds of a gold medal at the recent National XC Relays... so shouldn't he be turning out in the league for them? Many similar examples across the results. Ditto Loughborough Uni and their Olympic Academy, who similarly dominated for a good part of the previous decade.

The older coaches and team managers are adamant this shouldn't be happening and club runners should be running for their clubs.

I'm a bit more 50/50 on the subject. Whilst i generally agree with their argument, having Loughborough, Birmingham (and indeed Warwick) Universities in the mix with some great teams like Tipton, Birchfield et al.... enhances the prestige of the league as one of the "best in the country".

And also gives young athletes the chance of regular good quality competition, when they might not be able to afford the expense of travelling home for a bread-and-butter league fixture.

To prevent civil war breaking out in the Cov Godiva car park, a compromise was proposed.... Let the Uni's race, but either they are con-competitive (i don't think this will work or they'll likely just not bother to race at all).... or have separate medals, top 3 in the league, and top 3 clubs.

I wonder what the die-hard XC guys such as GazB and WP think on this one....?
Whilst not a die-hard XC guy, I did do 7 seasons in the Birmingham XC league - starting when there were 5 divisions.

I'm also a bit 50/50 on the subject; it doesn't seem right that you can be competing at top level for one club one week, and then a different one a few weeks later. At the same time, if this was not allowed then the league would be weaker - possibly a lot weaker.

At this stage I should declare that I plied my trade in the lower leagues, racing in div 5,4,3 and 2 but never 1. It therefore never had an effect on our club position, as the Uni clubs were all in Div 1.

One attractive feature of the Birmingham league was, and I believe still is, that all the divisions race together in the first race. This was useful in telling you where a top 10 finish in Div 5 put you in the grand scale of things which in my case, (on a one short, three long laps course with six stream crossings), was never being lapped.

If I had to vote on the issue, Id probably vote to keep it as it is. I believe that competing against the best and getting better is more useful than finishing higher in the league