It has been a fabulous season for our local clubs in the Northern Track and Field League for senior athletes.

Blackburn Harries successfully defended their Division 1 Championship and both Rossendale Harriers and the combined Burnley and Pendle team won their leagues to earn promotion.

All three teams were also winners on the final day with Blackburn and Rossendale making their highest scores of the season.

Two of Blackburn’s teenage stars had even more reason to celebrate in their match at Preston as Sophie Hitchon set a new league record of 62.61 metres in the women’s hammer, beating her own mark of 61.34m set in the previous round, and Luke Evans equalled the record of 21.5 seconds in the men’s 200m.

Blackburn Harriers’ team manager Tony Wood could have been speaking about all of our successful clubs when he said: “You can’t win a league title without being consistent, committed and most of all talented right across the board.”

Hitchon embodies that sentiment, and while her result in the hammer was almost assured, she also won the 100m and 200m.

If anyone could possibly top that, it was Luke Evans who as well as equalling the league record in the 200m, also matched the long standing club record set by the famous Peter Beavan in 1970.

Beavan won the European Junior 400m title that year.

There were personal bests aplenty for the Harriers for Sarah Henton in the javelin, Paul Bradshaw who matched his with 48.2 seconds in the 400m and for Tom Cornthwaite who beat Ben Fish for the first time on the track with 9:38.8 in the 3000m steeplechase.

Jerome Duxbury set his best as he won the ‘B’ string 100m in 11.2 seconds and at the end of the afternoon he combined with Bradshaw, Evans and Claude Peter-Thomas to win the 4x100m relay in 43.5 seconds, just four tenths outside the Blackburn record.

Rossendale Harriers maintained their recent momentum to win their third fixture in a row and extend their final margin in Division 3WC to five points.

They will compete in the second division next year, only one level below Blackburn.

Speaking for Dale after their victory at Cleckheaton, Chrissie Smith said: “Taking the title was a remarkable achievement for a small club.”

Phil Bolton and Aaron Barker started the day with wins in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ pole vault and double firsts soon became a theme.

Ashley Kay and Joe Moores celebrated theirs in the men’s 800m, Bolton combined with Jordan Beard in the 3000 metres steeplechase where they both set personal best times, and Joe Kelly was successfully matched with Steve Clawson in the 5000m.

Not to be outdone, Emma Flanagan and Davina Raidy made maximum points for the women in both the 1500m and 3000m.

The Burnley/Pendle team was indebted to distance man Marc Hartley who took part in three of the most gruelling events – the 1500m, 5000m and 3000m steeplechase – and won them all.

Danny Eckersley, John Edwards, and Ryan Inglis were winners for the men in the 400m hurdles, hammer and shot and the women added to the tally in the 800m, discus and javelin thanks to Holly Crabtree, Charlotte Beech and Rosie Southworth.

The team dropped only one point all season and will bounce back to the third division at the first attempt.

Hyndburn AC won the ‘A’ 200m with Stephen Sumner, backed by veteran Nick Rawcliffe, who was second in the ‘B’ race before taking the ‘B’ 400m hurdles.

There was the club’s second 16-point haul in the women’s hammer where sisters Vikki and Lauren Grime were second ‘A’ and first ‘B’.

Hyndburn will remain in Division 4 next year after finishing fifth, and Chorley AC, in seventh, will be with them again.

Chorley fielded only five athletes including Paralympic star Graeme Ballard with their best result coming from Michael Hough, second in the long jump.