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Cheltenham & County Harriers: Recent athlete success fuelling the club’s future

Images from Cheltenham & County Harriers club visit

Cheltenham & County Harriers are an athletics club based in the South West looking to build on their recent success at both an individual and club level. The club are currently on seven out of seven for Club Standards, which provides a great platform for this progress. We recently visited the club and caught up with their chair, Crispian Webb, to find out more about the factors contributing to this success and their vision for the future.

Junior success driving the club forwards

Alongside his role as chair, Crispian is also an Assistant Coach and manages some of the U13 and U15 teams competing in the lower YDL competitions. He is therefore extremely proud of the progress that has been shown by these teams in recent years.

“We had always competed strongly in the lower YDL, and in the last few years we’ve managed to get to the national finals a few times in succession. And at the finals a number of our athletes have won medals, which has been fantastic.

“In recent years, there has been a real pulling together of everyone in the club, particularly within the YDL that we are competing in, and the success there has generated a real excitement. Some of the younger athletes are really keen and get motivated by others doing well but also wanting to become involved themselves.”

This success is key for the club as approximately 70% of the club’s members are under 18. The strength and depth of the junior section is also apparent in athlete’s individual performances, as a handful of athletes across the different event groups have secured England vests.

Future-proofing athletes and the club

Speaking to the different event group coaches at the club, the biggest challenge cited was competing priorities for the young athletes and how they can best support them through the age groups. The club are using an athlete-centred approach and putting different measures in place to support the holistic development of the young athletes.

“All the successes we have had in recent years provides a really good grounding for where we are heading towards. The challenge is getting those who are doing so well at youth to compete as adults but again we’ve seen that start to work most recently. There’s a huge camaraderie with athletes from across schools, which is key to making sure they enjoy it and keep moving through the different age groups, then come back to seniors.

“In terms of long-term vision, the club is almost becoming a Centre of Excellence within the community. On the one hand, it is focused on athletic development, but we have also brought in speakers to talk about mental health, how to prepare for their athletic events and coping with stress. We also have people helping with nutrition and hydration and have started to formalise how we do things like strength and conditioning.”

The club have also recognised that they needed to make some improvements to engage current and potential new members across their website and social media platforms. This will help to future-proof their communications. They applied for a grant from the England Athletics Club Improvement Fund to support these developments. Crispian described their plans for this investment,

“In recent years, these channels have become clunky to update, so the funds will go towards improving the website and how that works. It will make sure the website is up to date with how it pulls information from social media and vice versa.”

Fostering a sense of community within and beyond the club

The camaraderie between athletes has played a key role in the success of the club. Athletes have come together to train and compete from lots of different schools across the large catchment area. This sense of community also stretches beyond the athletes to the various volunteers who continue to be involved.

“We actively encourage parents to get involved in officiating or as an Assistant Coach. This has been the route for lots of our coaches - they came through with their children and then they have stayed on, which I guess fits in with the whole ethos of community.”

Cheltenham & County Harriers share the Prince of Wales Stadium with other sports clubs, including Smiths Rugby. Through this they have developed a positive and collaborative relationship to provide the best opportunities for the young athletes across both clubs throughout the year.

“We’re hoping to actually work with the Smiths Rugby juniors on a two-way basis. So, during the summer we will help some of them train and then some of our athletes might actually get to play for them during the winter as well.”

Get in touch

As always, we would encourage clubs to get in touch with their Club Support Manager if they would like support with club standards or club matters:

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