A FIRST attempt at a decathlon worked wonders for City of Salisbury stalwart Darren Clissold who competed at the UK Masters championships and took silver in his age group.

Competing in the over 40- year-old veteran category in Birmingham, Clissold was the first Englishman home after taking on ten events.

Among those, he set one personal best, a remarkable eight season’s bests and four club age group records. For good measure, his decathlon points score was also a senior record.

On the coast, the Salisbury club’s hesitant start to their defence of the road race league crown that they have won for the past two seasons continued at the Solent half marathon.

Despite the valiant efforts of Stuart Holloway to ignore the effects of an unseasonably warm day by the shore near Exbury, he was the only one able to make it into the top ten. His time of 1hour 16min 58sec earned him eighth spot.

Less than three minutes behind, Ben Brewster clocked 1.19.25. Then came Rithy Hy with 1.32.33 and the steadily improving Nick Willetts with a personal best 1.39.50, these four comprising the A team on the day.

With strong performances, however, from leading league contenders Overton, Stubbington Green and Winchester, the Salisbury club were forced to concede more ground in this third fixture of the series.

Melenie Murphy led out the ladies’ team with 1.52.24, supported by Jane Whiteley with a pb 1.55.53 and Liz Roberts with 1.56.21.

Other Salisbury finishers were Andy Budgell in 1.41.31, Craig Murphy 1.44.34 and Andy Robbins 2.01.28.