Sunderland Harriers’ senior men, who topped the First Division after the opening fixture of the North Eastern Harrier League at Wrekenton at the end of last month, struggled at Druridge Bay on Sunday.

They finished ninth of the 10 competing First Division clubs and now have dropped from first to third in the league on 10 points, behind leaders Morpeth with three points and Tyne Bridge on five.

It was always going to be a difficult task in trying to repeat their Wrekenton performance with a much weakened team for the handicap six-mile race.

Only one of the winning team remained in the squad and he ran another superb race to finish the club’s second counter running from the fast pack and giving away a five minutes start to the slow pack.

Ian Dixon, a 41-year-old veteran, finished 35th in 33.20 for the fifth fastest time overall and heads the veterans grand prix after clocking the two fastest times from the two events he has competed in.

Leading the Wearsiders home was new member David Wilkinson who finished 20th from the slow pack in 37.33.

Then it was left to Darren Stokoe in 101st (39.52), Paul McLachlan 167th (40.58), Paul Redman 170th (41.00) and Peter Shaw 240th (42.06) to end the scoring. There were 564 finishers. The fastest runner was Morpeth’s Sam Hancox who got through to sixth from the fast pack in a time of 31.14.

The Sunderland Harriers’ women’s team, who won promotion to the First Division last seaso,n are finding the going tough. They equalled their seventh place of the first fixture but drop to second off bottom of the league with 14 points with Alnwick below them on 20. North Shields are top on five points....

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