Blackburn Harriers’ Senior Coach Arthur Almond has won the prestigious North West Performance Coach of the Year Award for his work with middle distance star Alison Leonard.

The North West Regional Awards ceremony was held recently at the De Vere Hotel in Bolton and although Arthur wasn’t able to attend, he has now received his trophy, a framed certificate from UK Athletics and England Athletics, and a bottle of Heidsieck Champagne.

It is the Arthur’s second award of the post season period after both he and Alison received Achievement Awards from Kelly Holmes’ ‘On Camp with Kelly’ organisation following Alison’s magnificent fourth place in the 800m at the World Junior Championships in Poland.

His new honour is particularly special to him as it puts him top of a list of several hundred of his peers from our region.

Now in his late 60’s, Arthur Almond has served Blackburn Harriers since the mid-1970’s, becoming interested when his sons David and Mark took up the sport.

He has coached up to 40 athletes at a time when conventional wisdom dictates that six to eight is the optimum, yet protégés such as Louisa Powell, Matt Wood and Chris Hart have won than a dozen national titles between them.

Jason Lobo had such a close relationship with him that he retained Almond as his coach even after he left to experience National League competition with Belgrave, and the pinnacle of Arthur’s career so far is Lobo’s appearances in the 800m at both the Commonwealth Games and the World Championships during the late nineties.

He is now climbing towards a second and maybe even higher peak with the 18-year old Leonard.