WHAT'S in a name?

Quite a lot according to over half the voters from Southampton Running Club, who have given the thumbs down to a proposed amalgamation with the area's leading track and field club, Team Solent.

It was a close call. Of around 100 SRC members who res-ponded to the postal ballot, just three more voted against the merger than those in favour.

According to SRC coaching co-ordinator Tony Fern, the main stumbling block was Team Solent's insistence on protecting their own identity after an amazing 16-year success story that's carried them all the way into the British Men's and UK Women's Leagues and fea-tured star names like Roger Black and Kriss Aka-busi.

Fern said: "Team Solent wanted their name to go first with Southamp-ton's latched on to it, and that didn't go down too well with many of our members.

"I think they were willing to toss a coin for whoever's name went first, but they didn't want to be told because it felt too much like domination.

"The two clubs are fairly new (SRC was formed in 1981 under the banner of Southampton Road Runners), but they've both been relatively successful and history has got in the way.

"But it was a very close vote and showed a good percentage of our membership wanted the city teams to join together."

Currently, a fair sprinkling of SRC's road and cross-country athletes turn out for Team Solent as second claim athletes on the track.

Even so, lack of distance strength has contributed to Solent's recent slide down the British League and Fern reckons there would be greater loyalty to a united club.

He added: "At the moment we have got people like Paul Ashley (Winchester & District) and Jamie Jones (Overton Harri-ers) competing for other clubs on the track, but they'd join Team Solent if the merger went ahead.

Then there's Andy Morgan-Lee. He competes for Salford Harriers, but he'd jump at the chance to get involved if there was a stronger club here."

For SRC, one of the main benefits of a merger would be an expansion into youth. Unlike Solent, they cater only for senior and veteran athletes and virtually all their 200 members are 18 or over.

Fern said: "People who start out on the track are always better in the long run than people who just run. Take the local Road Runners 10 series, for ex-ample. Last year's counters were all people who, at one time or other, had been track runners.

"If you look back most of the top Southampton road and cross-country runners like Andy Morgan-Lee, James Starling, Mark Gregory, Eddie Tee and Brad Glenton, all of them started with me at nine, ten and 11 years old and gradually came through to run internationally."

With those names at the fore, SRC have also savoured success in their 21-year history - they won the Southern Road Relays in a record time in 1997.

"Unless we merge, I can't see those days ever coming back again," said Fern.