TITLE-HOLDERS Ilford slumped to fourth place in this year s London Open Walks held in freezing and windy conditions at Victoria Park on Sunday. In spite of some excellent individual performances, absences cost Ilford the opportunity to successfully defen

TITLE-HOLDERS Ilford slumped to fourth place in this year's London Open Walks held in freezing and windy conditions at Victoria Park on Sunday.

In spite of some excellent individual performances, absences cost Ilford the opportunity to successfully defend the title they won last year.

In addition, the field was extremely strong with a number of internationals at the front, led by the King brothers from Colchester.

Scott Davis made his first appearance of the new year following illness and, although never in touch with the race leaders, performed surprisingly well to finish seventh in a respectable time of 47 minutes five seconds, a time that would probably have been 30 seconds faster were it not for the strong winds on much of the course.

New signing Steve Allen (not to be confused with his namesake Steve Allen the taxi driver who was unavailable for this fixture) performed superbly to record a personal best of 54.53 in 14th place.

That made him Ilford's second scorer, ahead of Steve Uttley (17th in 55.48), who had walked through the field after a slow start to gain several places in the second half of the race.

Dave Sharpe in 22nd (1:00.31) and Laurence Dordoy (23rd) had a battle through most of the race until the latter tired in the last mile or so, with Bob Dobson also walking in 33rd place.

Mention should also be made of second claim member Steve Crane, who was an excellent 10th in a time of 52.06, his fastest for several months.