Hercules Wimbledon Athletic Club will make history this weekend when they field two teams at the England men’s Road Relay Championship in Birmingham for the very first time in the club's 48-year history.

The two teams qualified for Birmingham via the South of England Championships at Aldershot a fortnight ago.

Jonathan Cornish, Ben Toomer, Joe Clark, Joe Toomey, Fred Slemeck and Kieran White, achieved Hercules Wimbledon’s best ever placing in finishing 15th out of the 69 teams, and improvement on the previous highest placing of 18th.

The club’s B team of Alex Robinson, Matt Sharp, George Longworth, Richard McDowell, Phil Glynn and Rob Tuer, finished 29th.

Senior club official Pete Mulholland, who has just stepped down after 50 years as cross country secretary, said: "It’s a tremendous achievement and indicates good strength in depth, which augurs well for the forthcoming cross-country season.”

Matthew Sharp warmed up for Birmingham by racing to a lifetime best time in the Berlin marathon on Sunday.

He clocked two hours 29 minutes 15 seconds in finishing 129th out of almost 28,000 runners to improve by more than a minute on his previous best of 2.30:53 set in the Valencia marathon last November.

Hercules Wimbledon’s Peter Giles broke the British veterans men’s over 70- record for the classic one mile distance in winning the British Masters’ title at Alexander stadium, Birmingham, with a time of 5:45.14.

He celebrated his British record by taking the 10,000m title the following day in a Hercules Wimbledon club record time of 41:31.79.

Elsewheren, Hercules Wimbledon teenager Amelia Casey was the women’s event winner in the Richmond Park 5km parkrun on Saturday, clocking 21:21.

Hercules Wimbledon have a busy weekend - while the club’s top 12 runners are in action in the English road relay championships in Birmingham, other runners will be in action in the opening East Surrey League event of the winter in Lloyd Park, Croydon, on Saturday.

The young athletes two miles race for both boys and girls is at 2.30pm with the senior and veterans men’s and women’s five miles race going off at 3pm.

The races start and finish near the Lloyd Park tramline stop.

Hercules Wimbledon's track and field training sessions take place at Wimbledon Park athletics stadium on Tuesday and Thursday evenings starting at 6.30pm and Sunday mornings at 10.30am. Further details from coaching coordinator Maurice Sharp on 020 8337 8707.