Greenall Memorial -Melrose Strikes Back

The Greenall Memorial was contested by a small but hardy few who battled it out on wind and rain swept roads on saturday. The Greenall Memorial celebrates the short but prosperous life of Brian Greenall (1956 - 1975). The main challenge of the day was two asscents of the Berrick hill but difficult conditions and the handicap nature of the race insured that the pace was on from the gun.

First to start was the limit bunch which was made up of Tony Gamble, Graeme Gliddon, Carl Larson, Jan Brosnahan and Colin Tye. A whopping 32 minutes later the scratch bunch wqas released (which consisted of Ashley Whitehead, David Ayre, Paul Whitley and Shane Melrose). Right from the start Melrose and Whitley tapped out a blistering pace enabled Scratch to catch break before break had even completed half a lap of the Berrick Circuit. A brisk pace and a strong crosswind left the break (and at times scratch) riders hanging onto the back of the bunch. As the bunch rounded the top corner, karma (in the form of Steve Harvard) took care of all the riders who had been sitting on when Harvard crashed in front of them.

Scratch continued to reel in and spit out riders as they proceeded round the course untill only limit lay between them and line honours. With 20km to go the time gap was 9 minutes and scratches case seemed hopeless but a redoubled effort saw the gap begin to close along with all but Melrose, Whitehead and Ayre falling off the pace. Melrose tried several ill fated attacks through the outram ups and downs but after 70km of hard racing was in no condition to stay away.

With 5km to go, scratch was still 2:10 behind but could now see the limit riders battling the headwind up the road. As scratch turned into final straight limit still seemed just out of reach but a suicidle leadout from Ayre saw the gap closed with 100m to go leaving the sprinters to battle for line honours. Melrose quickly discovered he was the only sprinter left and took the win followed by Whitehead and Ayre in a distant second and third place.

In other news the TAB is considering going into receivership after "rediculous odds" saw all betters backing Melrose and the TAB posting a huge loss. More infomation on how much share and debenture holders can expect to recover will be released in the next few months. When asked if the TAB's predicermint was a symptom of the global credit crunch which has already seen 23 major credit companies go into receivership, a TAB spokesperson said "of course not, it was merely a case of the TAB offering rediculous odds. Only an idiot would have bet against Melrose when the odds were 9 to 1!"