The first championship cross country event of the calendar year, the Hampshire County Cross Country Championships last weekend, had many wishing they had opted for the indoor track season, as sub-zero temperatures greeted the athletes at Dibden Purlieu on the edge of the New Forest.

With the ground frozen solid, many shied away from wearing cross country spike shoes, but there were plenty of thermal tops, hats and gloves in evidence as the athletes endeavoured to combat the extreme temperature conditions, even for January.

This year’s championships were the most successful Andover AC has had in many years as something occurred that has not happened since the 1960s, with team gold. It came from the U15 boys team - affectionately termed ‘The Dream Team’ who all, despite the icy conditions, counters and non counters (four to count as a team), performed to the highest personal standards. The first four home were Alex Rudge, who took the individual bronze medal over the short 3.6k course, Tom Bennett, who is starting to come back to his true form in sixth, Dan Grinham, who is also a highly-talented footballer and is part of the Oxford City Academy in seventh place and relative newcomer Sam Robinson, who still has another year in this age group in 11th. This meant that they took the team gold, a massive 26 ahead of Aldershot and Farnham in second with Basingstoke third on 74 points. While the club has seen some success in the medal stakes over the years on an individual level they have to go back to the 1960s and early 70s to see cross country team strength such as this.

Amazingly, just to demonstrate the strength in cross country endurance events in this age group, even if Alex and Tom had not competed, the remaining team of Chris Neil (17th), Roland Barter (40th) and San Edwards would have still won gold.

Full story with more pics in Friday's Advertiser