County Sports Club Feature

Sporting Super Cop 2006

Lancashire National Finalists Selected

PC Andrew Thornhill - HR HQ

PC Lisa Griffin - Support Unit - Western Division

Result

The above event took place at Hopton-on-Sea, Norfolk on 3 and 4 May 2006 with the following result:-

2^nd Women’s Event

PC 2807 Lisa Griffin – Western Division

PC Andrew Thornhill was placed ninth overall.

Full Report

By PC's Andy Thornhill and Lisa Griffin

The inaugural super cops event was held alongside the Police Sport UK Indoor Games at Hopton-on-Sea, Norfolk on 3^rd and 4^th of May 2006 with PC Andrew Thornhill and PC Lisa Griffin representing Lancashire Constabulary.

The journey began at 0630 on Tuesday 2^nd of May for Andy and Lisa with transport being kindly provided by Neil Braithwaite from Police Sport UK. Neil had also offered to provide transport for Carol Barter to the 10 pin Bowling Championships to be held at the same place. Carol had to transport five different types of bowling ball with her so it was a tight squeeze into Neil’s vehicle. Andy and Lisa both wondered why five balls were needed and both asked the question on being introduced to Carol. The five balls were explained and obviously worked for Carol as she won her tournament having led from beginning to end.

After what appeared an eternity the contingent finally arrived at Hopton-on-Sea and the first task of getting booked in for the accommodation was achieved. There was however a slight hitch as Andy was not on the participants list for the event, but this was soon resolved.

After booking in, Andy and Lisa were told that there was to be a briefing at 2000 for the Super Cops participants in the bar and Andy was almost in tears at this point. Not only had Andy sacrificed watching his beloved Blackburn Rovers against the newly crowned champions Chelsea to go to the event, he was being made to miss the match as it was being shown live on Sky. However, not wanting to be denied watching the game Andy and Lisa came up with solution over dinner.

The meeting took place where the participants were introduced to the organisers and the referees of the event where it was explained that there were only to be 10 events, all of which were compulsory and it had been decided that tennis, pool and darts were not to be chosen events. The organisers had also decided to split the participants into two groups where each group would do the ten events over two days, five each day with one group doing one set of five and the other group doing the other set. Andy and Lisa had been placed in the same group alongside half of the Met contingent and the representatives from Cambridgeshire, Scotland, and North Wales.

Day 1

Archery

This was the first event with neither Andy nor Lisa having ever done archery before. With a very brief practice and lesson given beforehand where both performed well it was down to the real thing. Lisa seemed a natural and was complimented by the instructor who said that if she had taken up the event as a youngster, could have made it to the top. Lisa scored well with her five arrows on this event and had made a decent start. Andy scored with all five arrows but seemed to let his lack of practice get the better of him and it is fair to say was disappointed with his overall score.

Indoor Rowing

The archery provided a relaxed atmosphere and acted as an ice breaker for those involved. The mood changed somewhat when the participants moved to the gym and this event was about to start. The referee asked for a two contestants at a time with volunteers to go first. There were no takers so Andy agreed to go first with the target of rowing as far as possible in 10 minutes. Andy started at a great pace and seemed to have the other contestants worried with good technique and timing. There was then a slight hitch as the rowing machine began to move across the gym floor and it took the referee a couple of minutes to sort this out. This seemed to knock Andy out of his stride somewhat but he had set himself a target of 2500 metres over the 10 minutes and finished on 2561 metres. Lisa then started and had set of at an amazing rate but her technique was not quite there and achieved around the 2200 metre mark which she was disappointed with and knew that she could have fared better.

Football

Onward to the football pitch and none of the contestants knew what to expect from this event but all knew that it involved dribbling with a ball through a series of cones and hitting a traffic cone from 12 yards. There were to be five second penalties for touching a cone or missing one when dribbling and a five second penalty for missing the target cone. Lisa incurred two penalties whilst dribbling and after a couple of near hits failed to hit the target cone. This was a great effort by Lisa having not played football for some time and she came second overall. Andy did not incur any penalties whilst dribbling and hit the target cone once and narrowly missing it on the other four shots and came second in his group and third overall.

Sprinting

This event involved a sprint over 150 metres against the clock with a turn at the 50 metre mark on a football pitch. Andy completed his time in just over 19 seconds and finishing just outside the top three. Lisa completed hers in just over 23 seconds, finishing in the top three overall.

Gym Test

The gym test comprised of press ups, squat thrusts, high knees and abdominal crunches. This series of events was quite gruelling in what had already been a demanding first set of events. Both Andy and Lisa gave good accounts of themselves in this test and both were pleased to finish it.

After the gym test Andy and Lisa were then invited by the archery instructor to have a look at the rifle range where they were challenged by two colleagues from North Wales to a competition. Andy and Lisa won this small aside and went into good heart for day 2 having restored some national pride.

Day 2

Both Andy and Lisa were affected by illness on day two but decided that they would carry on regardless and finish the competition. Thankfully both managed to overcome their ailments to compete in the next five events.

Running

This event took place in the gym and involved the treadmill, where the competitors had to run as far as they could as fast as they could in ten minutes. There were several marathon and fell runners competing in this event. Lisa finished third overall having played her joker and Andy had trained well for this event but finished in the bottom half overall.

Rugby

This involved kicking a rugby ball from 10,20,30,40 and 50 metres over and in between a set of goalposts. Neither Andy nor Lisa had ever kicked a rugby ball before so this event was to be interesting then!! Lisa kicked two conversions and failed to convert at the 30, 40, and 50 metre points. Andy managed to kick all five conversions and finished first overall in this event is fair to say that there was a great deal of satisfaction for Andy in winning especially as one of the other competitors confessed to the others that he was the kicker for his rugby team.

Golf

This event involved hitting the ball on the green on a par 3 hole. The hole was uphill and the wind was strong. Each competitor had five balls and nearest the pin would win. Out of all taking part only one managed to get a single ball on the green. Andy and Lisa both came close but both their shots fell short of the green.

Biathlon

This event seemed to involve a lot of running around a set area with a bean bag being thrown at a target. Failure to hit the target would result in a further lap as a penalty. The winner would be the person that scored the most targets. Both Andy and Lisa scored three with the overall winner for the men scoring five and the ladies winner scoring four.

Basketball

This involved shooting balls at a basket from a series of six set points. Andy managed two baskets with Lisa managing three. The overall winner for the men scored six and Lisa scored jointly to share the lead of the ladies group.

Conclusion

That was the end of the first ever Super Cops and Andy and Lisa were both pleased to have represented Lancashire and proud of what they had achieved. They were also the only representatives of any force from the north of England so there was plenty of banter with those from the south.

Lisa came second place in the ladies having missed out on first place due to the points given because of age and was bitterly disappointed having narrowly missed out on first place. Andy finished halfway in the men’s group and was pleased not to have finished last as this was his aim when he agreed to participate in the competition.

The presentation evening rounded off the event with a splendid five course meal being served at the formal dinner and entertainment afterwards. It was then onto the after entertainment disco where Lisa introduced everyone to a drink called Cheeky Vimto which went down a storm. After a long night it was time for the Super Cops to retire for the evening then after a few hours sleep it was time for breakfast, check out of the room and head for home.