Results from the first mob match are here or on the Results page. DRR won the match 2-0!

​

Below are the details for the first ever Dundee Roadruners vs Perth Roadrunners mob match. If you'd like to be part of the DRR team, please sign up on TeamApp. It's open to all members, including second claim members with a genuine connection to the club (e.g. have recently run a race with DRR, or regularly come to club nights).

 

All are very welcome regardless of pace or whether you plan to put 100% effort in on the day, it's meant to be a fun event and having more members turn up generally helps our score anyway. It's parkrun, so it's something anyone can do and enjoy being part of the DRR team.

​

What: the first DRR vs PRR parkrun Mob Match (MM)

 

When: Saturday, 15th February, 2025 – gathering from 8:45, race at 9:30, refreshments from 9:50

 

Where: Perth parkrun, North Inch, Perth

 

You will need:

- To race in club colours – racing vest or racing T-shirt (NB: not club training tops - we can bring some spare vests/t-shirts along, so let us know if you don't have one)

- parkrun barcode (sign up to parkrun if you haven’t already)

 

If you want to be part of (and score in) the MM, you will need both of these. You can run without either, but you won’t be part of the MM (no exceptions will be entertained!). We would also ask that MM runners set their parkrun profile’s club to PRR or DRR (these can easily be altered back afterwards). This isn’t obligatory, but it will make processing the final results much easier.

 

Overall theme: to have a great inter-club race but with minimal impact on other parkrunners! We are grateful to Perth parkrun for allowing our event within the parkrun. This comes on condition - esp considering parkrun is “not a race” – that we do not negatively impact the wider parkrun in any way.

 

Before the race: It’s as for parkrun as normal, except:

- There will be club gazebos/tents pitched near the start from 8:45, for chat, shelter, atmosphere (eg ribbing rivals) and leaving kit/clothing. For kit, you can use the traditional parkrun Claes Bins if you prefer, but gazebos are preferred so as not to overfill the Claes Bins!

- We will try to get team/event/group photos at 9:20 sharp at the gazebos. This is always tricky, with heaps of folk away on warm-ups. We’ll do this quickly, but do please be there for a great photo or three.

 

NB: There will be no race numbers handed out (the tight morning timeframe makes this tricky). We don’t need them for scoring or results. But, without numbers, we do need everybody in club colours and to use the finish funnel method described below.

​

The race itself: Winter Perth parkrunners will be used to not knowing which course will be run until the day. If conditions allow, it’ll be the classic ‘pan-handle’ with the grassy bit after the turn. If that’s not possible, and assuming the event is held (see end of instructions), it’ll be 2-and-a-bit small laps of the North Inch, with the finish down by the pétanque terrain. In the latter case, finishers will need to double back to the start (~200m away) to collect items from the gazebos. Mob Match runners just run the parkrun as usual. We ask that, in running a competitive race, MM runners are mindful of that race on other (non-MM) parkrunners, especially in crowding at the start, at tight corners and at the finish. And also, of course, as parkrun remind us, mindful of being considerate to other non-running users of the parks that morning!

 

Finish funnel procedure:

- Since no numbers are being worn, we need to log MM runners in the finish funnel (see Results below).

- Do please stay in order in the funnel (as you normally would with a parkrun in any case).

- There will be a DRR/PRR finish/results team beside the finish funnel. The team may ask for your name as you pass them. They will log your position in the MM as you pass them.

- MM runners are (please) to keep moving along (so as not to hold up non-MM parkrunners).

- Standard parkrun placing protocols (ie being given a place token and then having it scanned/taken away) will function as normal for MM runners – don’t forget to do these.

 

Results:

- We are conducting our own position-counting at the funnel to create immediate team results, to be announced at the team gathering after the MM (see below).

- Although we’ll use the parkrun results to compile our own official results sheets later in the day, the parkrun results will take quite a while to emerge: longer than we can wait around drinking coffee to call the team results!

- Only team results, not individual times or age cat results (etc) will be announced at the gathering.

- Our results will appear on the DRR vs PRR MM page on the PRR website as soon as they are finished.

 

After the race:

- From 9:50, MM finishers (and helpers) will be welcome at the Black Watch Museum (BWM) café.

- We will have a room to ourselves, adjacent to the main café room (we’ll seek to direct runners on arrival) with our own tea/coffee urns.

- Bulk tea/coffee will be provided ‘free’ to MMers and helpers. Other drinks (eg posh coffee etc) or breakfast items (pastries, bacon butties etc) can be purchased at the café counter.

- Hopefully, runners and teams will mix/chat/warm up/dry off. - If running shoes are particularly muddy/manky, please remove on entering the BWM.

- We’ll calculate the team scores as fast as we can. Since the scoring goes a long way down each team, we need most runners to have finished, and then a little more time, to get results calculated and checked. We hope to announce team results at around 10:30.

- PRRs will be unsurprised to learn that there is a trophy (of sorts) on offer to the winning team (details of scoring mechanism are below). All will be revealed on the day.

​

Parking: a range of options exist. The car park immediately adjacent to Bell’s immediately adjacent to the North Inch is especially handy. There is on-street parking (used carefully) just north of Bell’s (esp Muirton Bank). Car sharing is much recommended.

 

Toilets: are at the former Bell’s Sports Centre, 150m from start line/gazebos.

​

Is it on? Being February, there is a non-zero chance that the parkrun may be called off (ice, flooding, snow etc). If the Perth parkrun is off, so is the Mob Match. If the parkrun is called off, we will let DRRs and PRRs know as fast as possible, but we advise MMers to watch the Perth parkrun webpage for the most immediate news.

​

Format: 

A mob match (MM) is a club-on-club affair: normally, just two clubs and two sets of colours. Mob matches are something of a South of England thing, where they’ve become commonplace. We’re aware of at least (but only) a couple more north of Carlisle (the Bellahouston clubs: we salute you!).

​

The PRR vs DRR fixture is new for 2025. We don’t currently have the resource/bandwidth to run a stand-alone MM in our busy year, so we’re delighted that Perth parkrun will allow us to hold a parkrun Mob Match within the usual parkrun. The idea, if it proves popular, is to alternate the fixture between Perth and Dundee parkruns each year (and who knows, maybe a neutral parkrun might get used sometime?).

​

How it works:

Two matches occur together: one for the men and one for the ladies, both run within the parkrun itself.

Each match is scored as per cross-country races: ie the race-winning male and female each record 1 point, 2nd in each race takes 2 points, 3rd takes 3 etc. These are added up across each team for all the scoring places (see next point), with the lowest team total winning that match.

​

How many runners score points in each team? The concept of mob matches is that the majority of the ‘mob’ have a direct influence on the outcome; scoring is typically deep into each team. However, it’s quite possible one club may struggle to field good numbers, and a format has been chosen not to overly disadvantage that team. Also, a very few slower runners typically wish to run the race knowing they won’t ‘ballast’ their team’s performance (to the extent that some alas choose not to compete for fear of doing so, which we really want to avoid). So, the number of scoring runners in each team is thus three fewer than the smaller team in each match. The larger team retains an advantage in that its non-scoring athletes may push the opposition’s scorers to lower positions.

​

Mob matches are all about the winning club overall. It’s quite possible that the above format will see each club win one match each (ie one wins the ladies’ match, the other wins the men’s). In this eventuality, the club winning its match more emphatically (as decided by the lower proportion/percentage of the total points scored in the two races) is declared triumphant overall.