There is a Manx link almost everywhere, this time with Test Match cricket and athleticism being in the genes!
Keen followers of Test Match cricket, like me, will have loved watching debutant bowler Tom Hartley taking seven second-innings wickets to give England a stunning victory over India.
But what I only discovered recently is that Tom is the son of former Great Britain international 400 metres runner Bill Hartley, who along with his then wife Donna (also a GB international) used to coach star Manx sprinter David Teece when he was a youngster.
David’s daughter Carla was also in the news recently when she beat her own Isle of Man junior women’s record for the indoor 60 metres in Manchester.
The Hartleys and the Teeces have clearly both passed on good sporting genes to their offspring!
This gives me the perfect excuse to republish this wonderful photo of Bill Hartley and David Teece training together in the early 1980s on the grass track at Tromode, on what is now the Cronkbourne cricket ground.
Good genes
Carla Teece came in the indoor 60 metres in the Junior Women’s category, when she ran a time of 8.02 seconds at Sportcity in Manchester in January.
This was narrowly inside her own age group record set in Sheffield last year, and an improvement on the 8.06 seconds she clocked in Sheffield a fortnight ago.
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