Crawley, minus Elaine Wells, did well to finish second against Havant in their division two match in the Southern League at Chelmsford.

They are certain of promotion and hope to discover they go up as champions when the league tables are published.

Horsham Blue Star won their final match at Basingstoke and also await the publication to see if they return to division one.

Worthing and Brighton and Hove, settled in mid-table after the penultimate match, seemed to struggle more than most to get a team out due to athletes being unavailable because of holiday commitments.

Worthing finished fourth at Basingstoke while Brighton and Hove had their worst result of the season, finishing fifth at Portsmouth.

Despite downbeat atmosphere in some areas, there were still some sparkling performances from some of the established athletes who seem to be at the top of their form.

Horsham Blue Star's Claire Milborrow, after a decade in the sport, seems to have taken over the mantle as the premier Sussex woman athlete from Worthing's Debbie Woolgar.

She roared to glory at Basingstoke.

Milborrow followed a brilliant sprint double with a victory in the 100m hurdles, her main event, and then leapt a season's best of 5.39m to win the long jump.

Also at Basingstoke, Caroline Garrett, from Worthing, now a veteran, recorded her best javelin throw since becoming a mother five years ago to take second place with 37.16m, squeezing up-and-coming Candace Schofield (Horsham) into third.

Garrett is Worthing team manager and coaches her club's young throwers, including county under-15 champion Melissa O'Neill who seems to have benefitted from competing in a variety of events.

O'Neill claimed just the high jump with 1.70m and the under-17 80m hurdles in 12.2sec.

She still has the All England Schools Combined Events Championships to concentrate on later this month.

In the Crawley match, Adele Bevan, who started the season well before her form dipped mid-season, showed signs of returning to her best form as she won the 800m in 2min.18.5sec and then cruised to an easy 400m victory in the B race.

Charlotte Best, who had a comfortable victory in the A 400m, took second place on her debut in the 30m hurdles.

Another Crawley athlete, Fiona Clark, back in action this season after giving up the sport, has made a steady return and her 3,000m victory in 10min.27.1sec was only just outside her season's best and a good cross country season for her is likely to see her running well inside ten minutes next season.