Be Part of the Beagles Success Story

Brentwood Beagles Athletics Club affiliated to England Athletics on 6 May 2022. Four years and five months later our athletes have won 604 championship medals, 265 of them gold, at every level from the Essex county championships to European championships in Great Britain vests. For a club founded less than five years ago, in which fewer than a quarter of athletes compete regularly, that return needs explaining, and this article sets out how it was built season by season.

Medal tables need context. Long-established clubs with several hundred competing athletes can publish large totals, and those totals often reach back decades. Ours begins in May 2022 and comes from a competing group that is a fraction of an already small membership. The better measure of a young club is its rate of progress, and ours is set out below.

Brentwood Beagles in numbers

• Club: Brentwood Beagles Athletics Club, based in Brentwood, Essex, and affiliated to England Athletics since 6 May 2022.
• Medals: 604 championship medals between May 2022 and September 2026 (265 gold, 163 silver, 174 bronze).
• National and international: 121 medals, made up of 98 national and 23 international.
• National team titles: English National Road Relays (under-13 and under-15 girls, 2025) and English National Cross Country Relays (under-13 girls, 2024 and 2025). English National Road Relays (under-14, 2026)
• Mini London Marathon: two championship race wins in 2024, two podium finishes in 2025 and four winners’ trophies in 2026.
• International vests: first England vest in March 2023, first Great Britain athletics vest in July 2024.
• Depth: more than 70 different athletes have won an individual championship medal.

The Brentwood Beagles medal table

Level	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
International	14	5	4	23
National	46	28	25	98
Regional	85	54	64	202
County	122	76	81	279
Total	267	163	174	604

Gold is the most common colour at every level and accounts for 44% of the total. One medal in five was won at national or international level. For a club in its fifth season those are the two rows that matter most, because a county medal rewards being good locally, while a national medal means beating the best in the country.

2022, the first eight months

Our first competition as an affiliated club came little more than a week after the paperwork was complete. It was the Essex County Championships, and we came home with three medals. Within four months two of our athletes had qualified for the England Athletics Age Group Championships, the club’s first national finalists, and one of them returned with silver. The autumn brought our first county team title, in the under-13 girls’ race at the Essex Cross Country Relays, and by November the same age group had won the Eastern cross country team title as well. The year closed on 24 medals, 12 of them regional and three national, from a club that had been affiliated for eight months.

2023, the first titles

The second year turned medals into titles. In March a Beagle wore an England vest for the first time, at the schools international cross country, and came back with individual silver and team gold. July produced the club’s first European champion, at the European Biathle Championships in Germany, 14 months after affiliation. In August came our first England Athletics national title, over 3000m and in a championship best performance, and in October our under-15 girls finished third of more than 130 teams at the English National Road Relays to win the club’s first national team medal. A South of England cross country relay title and a first English Schools medal arrived in the same season, and the total more than tripled to 78.

Recognition followed off the track. England Athletics named our chair East Region Club Leader of the Year, the club was runner-up for East Region Club of the Year for the second year running, and the Brentwood Civic Stars Awards made us Club of the Year.

2024, the breakthrough year

If 2023 proved that our athletes could win national titles, 2024 showed how many of them could. The total rose to 186, more than double the year before, and 52 of those medals were national or international.

The winter alone brought an England Athletics indoor 1500m title, two age group titles at the UK Inter-Counties Cross Country Championships, the English Schools cross country title, individual gold for England at the schools international, and the overall British Athletics Cross Challenge series title.

Spring added the English under-15 5K road title and two championship race wins at the Mini London Marathon. In the summer our athletes won two England Athletics 3000m titles, the English Schools 3000m title and 3000m gold at the UK School Games, broke a 22-year-old South of England championship record, and came back from the European Biathle Championships with four Great Britain team and relay golds and two individual silvers.

In July a Beagle was selected by Great Britain for the European Athletics Under-18 Championships in Slovakia and won bronze over 3000m, the first Great Britain athletics vest in the club’s history. In November our under-13 girls won the English National Cross Country Relays, our first national team title. The masters section joined in, with two British Masters race walking titles and two Great Britain team silvers at the European Masters Non-Stadia Championships, and our younger members won national titles in primary schools cross country, independent schools competition and youth triathlon.

2025, strength in depth

The fourth year answered a different question. Did the success rest on a handful of individuals? The total of 155 was lower than in 2024, yet the team results were the strongest the club has produced. At the English National Road Relays in October we won both the under-13 and under-15 girls’ titles and were the only club in the country to take two. The under-13 girls retained the English National Cross Country Relays title a month later, and at the Eastern cross country championships our girls won the team title in all three junior age groups.

A national relay win needs three athletes of national standard in the same age group on the same day, which is hard for a club of any size. To field two such teams in one afternoon, in the club’s fourth year, is the best evidence of depth we have.

Individual titles continued alongside. We won an England Athletics 3000m title for the third successive year, a UK Inter-Counties cross country title, a second consecutive Cross Challenge series, the national primary schools cross country title and a national schools biathlon title, and three Beagles ran for England at the schools international, where both of their teams won gold. At the Mini London Marathon, a national competition in its own right, our athletes finished second in the under-13 girls’ race and third in the under-17 women’s.

2026, still climbing

By the end of September 2026 the count for the year stood at 159, with the autumn relays and half the cross country season still to come. County medals had already reached 85, the highest of any year, and they now come from under-12s, masters, sprinters, jumpers, throwers and combined eventers as well as the endurance squad.

The national list lengthened again. It includes an England Athletics indoor 1500m title in a championship best performance, the club’s first individual title at the English National Cross Country Championships, a win at the UK Inter-Counties for the third year running, the English Schools 1500m title, another England Athletics 3000m title and a third successive Cross Challenge series. Three Beagles won gold with England at the schools international, our youngest athletes won national primary schools and independent schools titles again, and our under-15 girls took the Essex Cross Country League team title for the third season in a row. In April our athletes came home from the Mini London Marathon with four winners’ trophies, among them wins in the under-14 and under-12 girls’ races. A masters athlete won the Essex 10K road title and an England masters vest.

What the progression shows

Set the five years side by side and the pattern is plain. National and international medals went from three in 2022 to 17 in 2023 and 52 in 2024, and have numbered at least 24 in each year since. Regional medals have held at 50 or more for three years, while county medals have risen from nine to 85. More than 70 different athletes have won an individual championship medal, and others have won theirs in relay and team squads.

All of this has come from a small club. Our membership is modest beside the clubs we meet at national championships, and fewer than a quarter of our athletes compete regularly, so the medals are the work of a group smaller still. Other clubs can and do publish larger tables, and many have had decades and far larger squads in which to build them. Ours has been built from nothing in under five years.

Brentwood Beagles in Athletics Weekly

Our athletes’ results have been covered regularly by Athletics Weekly, the sport’s national magazine. Here are 16 of its posts about Beagles since November 2023. Scroll or drag to move through them, and select any post to read it at full size.

Join Brentwood Beagles

These results come from the commitment and hard work of our athletes, the fantastic support of their parents and carers and our exceptional athlete-centric coaching. Our waiting list now stands at more than 300 people, so places in our development squads are always in short supply, but we are always looking for performance-based athletes who want to take their commitment, their passion for our sport and their performance to a new level.

Distance is less of a barrier than it might seem. More than 15% of our regularly competing athletes live outside Essex, and many follow remote plans. They come and train with us when they can, and they are fully supported with day-to-day plans across all aspects of their life as an athlete.

If that sounds like you or your junior athlete, get in touch and ask about our performance academies and coaching programmes.

Talk to one of our coaches

The simplest first step is a conversation. Book a no obligation discussion about your performance training with one of our coaches. It takes place on Zoom, at a time that suits you.

Brentwood Beagles: frequently asked questions