Following four convincing straight wins out of four matches the Isle of Man's athletics team A has been crowned champions and promoted to Division 2W of the Northern League vindicating the decision to merge the Islands three track and field clubs Manx Harriers, Western and Northern into a single entity for competing in the UK league.
Competing in Division 3W against Wrexham, Manchester Harriers, Altringham, Southport Waterloo and Warrington the combined force of the Isle of Man team was too strong for the opposition amassing a huge points total across the four matches, one of the highest in the whole Northern League structure.
Meanwhile the Islands B team competing in Division 4W came a creditable 3rd narrowly missing promotion themselves in a division which contained 6 other teams.
Anthony Brand, Team IOM manager said, "This was an amazing and historic season during which everyone performed to a very high level. The number of 1st places, personal bests and Island Games guidelines was just phenomenal. It was made all the better by the success of the B team which is the development ground for many of our junior athletes to give them experience of competing at this level. In fact the junior athletes were of such a good standard that they were more than capable of competing at this level and supporting team A when necessary. This bodes well for a successful future."
The Isle of Man Athletics Association ("IOMAA") took the bold decision to form Team IOM in 2011 with the idea of improving the competition level for the Islands top athletes so that there was no requirement for athletes to swap clubs both locally or into the UK thus strengthening the Club structure on Island. This is just one of a number of the successful strategies that IOMAA have put in place to develop athletics on the Island which is currently paying dividends in terms of athlete performances.
Full results for all four Northern League matches can be found on www.noeaa.-athletics .org.uk.
The IOMAA would like to thank the officials who travelled with the team. The IOMAA are also looking for sponsors, if anyone wishes to get involved in supporting athletics please contact Anthony Brand on abrand@manx.net.
