ONLY a win will do for Winchester & District's men at Southampton Sports Centre tomorrow if they are to keep their British Athletics League dream alive.
Top-of-the table Worthing are favourites to land an automatic passage to the promotion play-offs at Watford on September 8, but second-placed Winchester must be primed to pounce on any slip-up by the Sussex club.
With other possible places available based on performance records, it is also essential that Ken Hardcastle's men hold off the challenge of Kent who, though one league point behind them, have a 668-648 match point advantage.
Whatever the outcome, it will still have been an incredible season for the cathedral city club who, despite a crippling lack of facilities, have risen from the Southern Men's League Division 6 to Division 1 in just seven whirlwind years.
Still soldiering along without their own track, Winchester have had to adopt Southampton as their makeshift training base. They have no sponsors or big-name athletes and, with no clubhouse either, they only meet up on competition days.
Nevertheless they continue to flourish in the face of such adversity, having lost just one of their five matches so far this season.
"Even if we don't make it into the play-offs, I personally think the team have completed a remarkable feat," said clubman Mike Ellis. "Imagine the response if a football team, who didn't have a pitch to play on and whose team members had to make their own practice arrangements, had lost only one match and were on the verge of a play-off position to the Football League. We'd have radio and TV coverage plus sponsors knocking at our door. But then reality sets in. This is athletics!"
Southern Men's League Division 1 top-three: Worthing 25 league points (663 match points), Winchester & District 24 (648), Kent 23 (668).
Weekend athletics fixtures
Today
IAAF WORLD ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
Edmonton, Canada (until August 12).
Tomorrow
SOUTHERN MEN'S LEAGUE
Division 1: Winchester & District at Southampton Sports Centre, Team Solent B at Bournemouth.
Division 4 West: Southampton City at Worthing.
Division 5 West: Team Solent C at Kingston.
Sunday
UK WOMEN'S LEAGUE
Division 2: Team Solent at Eton.
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