Veteran Morpeth Harrier Trevor Hodgson sprints to gold at the European Masters Indoor Championships

The North East and UK champion, who prior to the competition was ranked number one in the UK and number four in the world, triumphed in 7.44s, his second-best time of the indoor season.

France’s Bouziane Belghorzi took silver while Spaniard Xavi Bosch-Ortiz came third.

Hodgson can now look forward to the World Masters later in the year having won three major titles.

Elsewhere, Morpeth’s Senior Men’s squad picked up a hard-won team bronze in the Northern Athletics 12 Stage Relays, held at a breezy Wythenshaw Park in Manchester on Saturday.

With more than 50 teams in the Senior Men’s race, it was always going to be a tall order for Morpeth to retain a title they took at Redcar last year, but the team can certainly hold their heads up high after putting in an excellent showing that saw them within 30 seconds of a silver medal.

Once again Finn Brodie got the team off to a good start, tracking Team GB triathlete Jonny Brownlee, representing Bingley Harriers, with Brodie recording 23 minutes 40 seconds for the 8k leg.

In his first team outing for Morpeth after transfer from Blyth, Josh Fiddaman showed his potential with 13:37 for the first short leg of 4.5k, with Connor Marshall taking the second long next to record 24:43.

Tom Prentice clocked 14:01 on leg four before passing on to Carl Avery, whose long leg of 23:10 was the club’s fastest time for the distance.

Ellis Hetherington, like Fiddaman in his first team outing for the club, clocked 13:46 on leg six, and with Alex Brown’s 23:55 for the day’s final long leg, the team were comfortably in a third place that they never looked like losing.

Morpeth’s remaining short legs were run by Tom Balsdon (14:07), George Lowry (13:50), Alistair Douglas (14:14), Lawrence McCourt (13:25, the team’s fastest short leg) and Will Cork (13:31), for a net time of 3:26:5.

Leeds City won, clocking 3:24:46, with Salford Harriers and AC second in 3:25:35.