Evening Press Sport

The champions event of Yorkshire's longest running sponsored cycling league, the Ackrill League, took place at Knaresborough Squash Club.

Mike Youngson (Knaresborough CC) added the 1999 overall championship title to the one he won in 1996, in this the 21st year of the competition.

As in his 1996 victory Youngson collected a maximum total of 360 points from his nine qualifying rides from the 20 events in the series.

He beat off a late challenge from 1989 and 1993 champion Paul Caswell (Harrogate Nova CC), who won seven counting events to Youngson's nine, for a final score of 352 points.

Indeed, Caswell had the edge over his rival in the more hilly races, often pushing the champion into second place, while Youngson was virtually unbeatable on the flatter courses over the standard distances of ten and 25 miles.

Newcomer on the local scene at the age of 32 was Harrogate Nova's Nick Green, who at his first attempt finished in third place overall with a total of 339 points.

His wife, Louise, went even better in the women's competition, finishing runner-up to clubmate Heather Thomson, the 1999 champion, with a total of 259 points to the 275 of Thomson.

Richard Benson (Knaresborough RT/Cromwell Polythene) repeated his performance of 1998 by taking the Ackrill Schoolboy's Trophy, awarded to the highest placed under 16 rider on points, and added the Alison Holmes Decor Trophy as top junior (Under 18) to his collection.

Benson celebrates his 16th birthday on Boxing Day and the club's already strong junior squad will benefit from his presence next season.

Former footballer Tony Kent (Harrogate Nova) fought hard to get his name on the Stan Horner veterans trophy once again after a forced absence of several weeks mid-season due to injury. He finally overcame clubmate Vaughan Caswell in the final rounds to take the veterans title with a total of 312 points to the 294 of Caswell.

Unfortunately, Youngson's victory will be the last for Knaresborough CC, whose members voted at a meeting last week to disband the club.

The club, one of Britain's premier cycling clubs in the 1980s, with riders of the calibre of Beryl Burton, seven times women's world champion, Margaret Allen, British women's 10, 25, 50 and 100-mile champion, Richard Robson, the national schoolboys ten-mile champion, all wearing the club's green and yellow strip to national titles.

York's Robert Harris the double British amateur road race champion spent some time in Knaresborough CC colours, during which he set a record of 54min 2sec in winning the Yorkshire Junior 25-mile championship title. It is a record that stands today.

Fellow Dringhouses' rider Jon Surtees, one of the region's outstanding ten and 25 milers a decade ago in Knaresborough CC colours, is currently on the comeback trail after ten years out of the sport since starting a career in the RAF and is relishing his return.

Along with another former Knaresborough CC star, Richard High, who like Harris is a former Yorkshire Junior 25-mile champion, York's Surtees recently recorded a promising 22 minute ride in the Chesterfield Spire RC Open 2up ten-mile TT.

The pair, who are both on the comeback trail, are in a 90-strong field for this Saturday's Chesterfield Spire solo ten-mile TT on the Great North Road course at Ranby, Nottinghamshire.

High is seeded number 15 on the card, with Surtees at number 85, a bit of a surprise for a rider who has been out of competition for so long, but his previous best of 20.21 over the distance must have prompted this placing.

Both riders plan to race regularly in the new Millennium, but Surtees, a regular in the RAF rowing team over the past few years, starts an officers' training course at RAF Cranwell in the New Year, and may have to make a low key start to the season.

Ripon-based soldier Keith Murray, the army champion and just returned from several months tour of duty in Kosovo with 38 Engineer Regt, also rides the Chesterfield event, and it will be interesting to see how he fares on a diet of static turbo training.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.