ALDERSHOT, Farnham & District AC runners won the under-15 boys’ title at the English National Cross Country Championships on Saturday.

On a bone-chillingly cold day at Hampstead Heath’s Parliament Hill, the AFD team were led in by the individual silver medallist, Will Barnicoat, who was just four seconds behind Mohamed Ali of Ealing Southall & Middlesex.

Barnicoat’s team-mates were Ryan Martin (18th), Woody Jerome (19th) and Dylan Spencer (22nd).

The closest AFD came to more team gold medals was in the junior men’s race. When the positions of Jake Cvetkovic (10th), Luke Prior (13th), Rian McCawley (40th) and Lewis Reid (45th) were aggregated, the club was two points down on Milton Keynes Distance Project.

There were both team and individual silver medals in the junior women’s race. Niamh Brown was beaten only by the European junior champion, Warrington’s Harriet Knowles-Jones. Brown’s AFD colleagues were Nancy Scott, 14th, and Maisie Grice, 43rd.

Another set of silver medals was obtained by the U13 boys’ team of Ethan Scott (7th), Rudi Morrell (12th), Ollie Pickup (64th) and Joseph Feeney (79th).

There were bronze medals for both the U17 and senior men’s teams. For the younger runners, Luke van Oudtshoorn finished sixth, Marcus Shantry 12th, Max Heyden 48th and Jack Johnson 66th, while Richard Allen came 13th for the seniors, followed by Ellis Cross in 15th, George Gathercole 20th, MacGregor Cox 44th, Sam Eglen 90th and Alex Pointon 132nd.

The senior women were fourth, but there was an individual medal for Louise Small, her third silver in four years. She was unable to break Phoebe Law (Kingston & Polytechnic) who competed for Great Britain in December’s European Championships, an event Small was unable to contest because of injury.

• The entry for the championships was a record 9,000-plus runners, aged from 12 to 77 – a far cry from the 32 souls who contested the first event in 1876 and a clear sign of the ever-growing popularity of cross country.