Caroline Hoyte's hat-trick of Sussex senior women's cross country titles elevates her into a select group but she needs one more to match Penny Yule.

No less than seven previous athletes have completed the hat-trick and Yule has notched up four victories.

Whereas the men's championship was run after the Second World War, the women's event was not revived until 1964. There were races at the end of the Twenties and early Thirties organised by the Brighton Ladies Athletic Club, which was then the only established women's athletic club in Sussex, to which other Sussex runners were invited but those were not regarded as county championship events.

Similar events were held in the 1950s but like pre-war races they were not annual events.

Brighton and Hove's Margaret Raybould won the first official championship, over a muddy course at Mile Oak, which attracted a field of 16 runners.

A tall and powerful 800 metre runner who lived in the East Grinstead area, she is believed to be the first Sussex runner to crack 2min 30sec for the half-mile on the track.

She was the first runner to win three titles proving victorious again in 1966 and 1967 but having to play second fiddle to Yule, then at Chichester High School, in 1965.

Yule joined the Brighton Club and won the title again in 1970, 1972 and 1973 and reigns supreme with four wins to her name.

Yule became one the top British middle distance runners making several international appearances and winning the WAAA 1,500 metre title in 1978 before marrying and moving to France.

Now back in England and living in Hampshire she is still competing as a veteran as Penny Forse, coaching and supporting her son who is now showing promise in Inter-county schools events.

Such was Yule's talent that her 800 metres time of 2min 4.12sec and 4min 9.5sec for 1,500 metres in 1978 are still the second best times ever recorded by a Sussex athlete.

Crawley's Regina Joyce won the title in 1974, 1977 and 1978 while Brighton and Hove's Suzanne Morley took the title in 1983 but then waited for more than ten years, and after the birth of two daughters, to win her second title. Morley added a third crown one year later by which time she had become a veteran.

The most recent triple, other than Hoyte, was Crawley's Julie Briggs who took the crown in 1988, 1992 and 1993. Debbie Peel from Crawley took the title in 1982 and 1984 and also in 1981 but that year the race was held in conjunction with the under-17 championship.

Brighton and Hove's Sonia Vinall, who as Sonia McGeorge won the senior title in 1989 and 1990, won the overall race.

Caroline Hoyte won her first two titles before she was married as Caroline Herbert in 1996 and 1997.

Meanwhile, next Saturday, at Tunbridge Wells, more than a hundred youngsters will be donning Sussex Schools' colours to compete in the South East Region inter-county schools event.