We were cruelly robbed of 3rd place and a place in the final by some late finishing TAY’s so we’ll need to wait another year for our crack at glory.  Hopefully it won’t clash with BUSA again next year and we’ll have our students available to run.

The final results were so very close with a measly 7 points separating ourselves and TAY, the difference being only a few seconds on some courses.  Our sole course winner on the day was Robin Sloan on Green but there were other notable runs, including team captain John Tullie who led by example with a 10th on Brown despite his knee injury. 

The results are here .

The ladies section of Roxburgh Reivers made two very successful sorties over the Border last weekend.

The trio of Karen Maxwell, Eileen Maxwell and Lindsey Knox headed for a Regional/Ranking event in Northumberland, held on wet and heathery moorland near Kirkwhelpington, and came home with three tremendous first places. Club exiles Fiona Forrest and Douglas Henderson came north for the day and finished 3rd and 4th in their classes.

Travelling with the Scottish Junior Squad were Kirstin Maxwell and Sarah Tullie who had the long journey to Salisbury to compete in a combined National Event and Future Champions Cup qualifier. Kirstin had a storming run to finish in 2nd place in a very competitive class while Sarah Tullie had another solid run in 19th place, only 13 minutes behind the winner.

Closer to home the Cattermole family were at the lovely Dalkeith Park for the latest South of Scotland league event. Jamie had the best result finishing 11th on Orange with brother Iain not far behind in 15th place. Mum Jenny was 14th on Light Green. Bill Bruce was also in attendance, finishing 34th on Blue (probably saving his strength for the Pentlands!).

The Scottish Orienteering League kicked off again on Sunday at Drumlanrig Castle and, being relatively close to home, Reivers were out in force and came away with a plethora of top 4 placings.

Making a better start to 2008 than she did in 2007, Lindsey Knox had a clear victory in W45L and Jim also had a “not bad run” to win course 8 by a mile. Sarah Tullie took a good 2^nd place on JW5S and Ian Maxwell’s calf injury is improving so he managed an easy 2^nd on M45S despite making the same cockup on parallel paths that he made the last time at Drumlanrig.

Finishing in 3^rd were: Douglas Henderson on a very competitive M55L course, Karen Maxwell on JW4, Kirstin Maxwell on JW5L, Carol Boyd on W35S and Eileen Maxwell on W45S. In 4^th were Bill Bruce M55S and Fiona Forrest

W21L. Andrew Armstrong was 9^th on M50L which had the largest entry of all the age classes.

All these excellent results bode well for our CompassSport Trophy match on 16 March but we’ll be missing a few key players so a good turnout is required as we need to cover all colours from Orange to Brown. Remember every point is crucial, and other clubs will have the same BUSA clash and injured members that we have. Unfortunately RR team captain John T came off worse in a knee kicking contest with a coo last week and is currently crocked, but he’ll be issuing team instructions in due course.

Full results are here

With some of our Juniors on a ScotJos weekend it was left to the oldies and our youngest member to fly the flag at SoSOL 5 held at the seaside resort of Dunbar.  With Dad’s taxi arriving late 5 year old Emma Amos just had time to scoot round the White course before the markers were collected in, finishing in 11th place. On Green it was a family challenge between Lindsey and Jim Knox, Lindsey triumphing on this occasion by a couple of minutes to finish overall 2nd with Jim in 4th.  On Blue  – Robin Sloan had a fine 4th place and Bill Bruce walked round to finish 40th (but not last !).

Upcoming events are: the first Scottish League event at Drumlanrig on 2 March, followed by either the SoSOL at Dalkeith Park or the Badge event at Kirkwhelpington on 9 March, then our CompassSport Trophy match in the Pentlands on 16 March.

Another win for Roxburgh Reivers! Reivers’ Robin Sloan and Chris Hall finished in third place on the Vets Medium Score, but the first two teams were non-competitive, meaning that Robin and Chris won. Well done!

• OMM 2007 Results

The final event in the 2007 Scottish Orienteering League was held at Stobo last weekend and several members of Roxburgh Reivers finished with top 3 placings after a long season which started back in early March. Also at stake for some members were trophies for the Tinto Twin, combining a night event on Saturday evening at Fir Park, near Carnwath with the day event at Stobo. Winning their league classes were British Champion Karen Maxwell and OMM winner James Tullie.

Karen was 2nd in 2006 but has shown the others a clean pair of heels this year.  James is obviously on top form, taking the Tinto Twin trophy for M21 only a week after his epic OMM weekend.

A clutch of members just failed in a final bid to win their classes with the following all finishing in 2nd place: Kirstin Maxwell, Eileen Maxwell, Lindsey Knox and Jim Knox.  John Tullie finished the season in 3rd place. Ian Maxwell had an enjoyable weekend with two good runs in the Tinto Twin to finish in 2nd place.