FOUR Bury AC members competed at the Trafford Grand Prix at Stretford where Matthew Collister delivered a winning performance in a thrilling 1500m senior E race where he prevailed in a battle down the home straight to win in 4mins 35:39secs.

Sam Smyth set a new personal best in the 3000m B race taking 8th in 9:17:31. There was also a personal best for Emily Purdy in the Under 15 800m C race where she recorded 2:24:10.

Ben Coop ran in the seniors 800m B race, where he took 5th in 1:56:43 in the closest race of the night where just 1.5 seconds covered the top six finishers.

Coop was back on the track on Wednesday, this time in the Manchester Mile event at Sportcity. There were personal bests all round for the Bury contingent with Coop taking 7th in the A race (4:30:04) and unusually finding himself behind a Bury colleague with Luke Harreld taking 6th in 4:28:60.

In the B race, Connor Wilkinson took 2nd in a new best of 4:45:40 and Matthew Collister was 7th in 4:51:96 (pb). Another personal best was set by Paul Johnston who won the C race in 4:55:06. Curtis Simpson made a return to racing and took 8th in the D race in a new best of 5:24:12. Jenny Yates set a season’s best of 6.19.90 in taking 7th in the G race and Susan Wheeldon-Gorst set a lifetime best of 6:47:0 to take 5th place in the H race.

On Sunday, Bury played host to the Youth Development League (Lower Age Group) North West 2 fixture. It was a close run affair with Deeside taking first place out of the eight competing teams with 550 points with Bury and Bolton joint second with 503 points each.

There were some superb individual performances and an excellent club spirit. For the under 13 girls there was a great victory in the A 800m for Faye Gribbin in a new pb of 2:32:4.

The under 13 boys dominated the field events. Oliver Cooper won the A high jump (1.40m), the A shot (8.44m) and set a fantastic new best throw to win the A javelin with 36.46m. Ben Clarke won the B high jump (1.25m) and the B javelin (33.26m). Kian Bleakley won the B shot (6.56m). Cooper and Clarke’s performances in the javelin currently rank them 3rd and 4th in the event nationally.

For the under 15 girls, Blessing Idoko won the A 100 (13:0) and the A long jump (4.54m). Corinne Newton had an excellent race to win the A 300 (43:6) and Evie Elliott won the A 75 hurdles in 12:3. Jemima Miles won the B hurdles event (12:7) and Tia Buckley won the B hammer (10.94m). The girls 4 x 100 quartet of Idoko, Newton, Miles and Elliott dominated the race winning in 51:9.

The under 15 boys saw victories for Ben Gardner in the pole vault (2.20m) and Samuel Gooddy in the A hammer in a brilliant new personal best of 39.58m. The boys 4 x 100 relay team of Calvin Mahon, Gooddy, Jake Amos and Gardner won in 52.4m. The 4 x 300 quartet of Moss, Isaac Wride, Thomas Donnelly and Amos took 2nd place in 3:16:9. With the final league fixture taking place in Warrington on July 30, another solid performance from the Bury AC youngsters will see them retain their place in the league.