TOCKINGTON Manor School athletes would have been proud to be seen by their own families at the National Prep School Cross Country Championships in Malvern last weekend.

But little did they know that two global icons would be in crowd to watch their own son.

Football legend David Beckham and his wife, pop star Victoria, were watching their son Romeo competing in the championships.

And Tockington Manor School’s Alex Grocott can take some consolation for his fourth place finish and missing out on a medal in the Under-13 race by knowing he beat young Romeo by nine places.

Over a thousand competitors across 80 national schools took part in the races at Malvern College.

And following the legacy of last year’s Under-13 boys team win for Tockington, this year yielded even better results.

Both the Under-11 and Under-13 boys teams both won the national small preparatory schools trophy.

Both teams also came third overall in the national competition, a phenomenal feat considering many schools competing are much larger than Tockington.

Jones, who at 11 years of age competes in the U13 girls team, has had an outstanding cross country season; she came second out of 165 runners in this national competition. Eleanor Parker came 17th in the same race.

Grocott ran an extremely impressive race in the gruelling U13 boys circuit – he came fourth and Alex Jacobi 15th out of 213 runners. In the U11 boys race, Ottis Walker came 18th out of 282.

These impressive results follow an outstanding cross country season for the school.

They recently competed at Warwick University in the final of four events held by the Gloucestershire Cross Country League.

This is a club event with Tockington Manor School being the only school team represented in the league.

Nevertheless, competing against the larger clubs such as Worcester AC, Forest of Dean AC, North Somerset AC, Stroud and District AC, Cotswold Pentathlon and Cheltenham and County Harriers, Tockington Manor School runners certainly made their mark.

The U11 boys and U13 boys both came second place overall and the U13 Girls in fourth place.

Jones (U13 girls) and Otis Walker (U11 boys) both narrowly missed out on the gold individual award by one place – they both achieved silvers in their individual categories.

Meanwhile, competing in the recent Westonbirt cross country event resulted in more wins.

With between 50 and 80 runners taking part in each race Jones won gold in the U13 race and in doing so broke the U13 girls Westonbirt course record.

Parker came second in the U13 race, while Logan Fitzpatrick and Rachel Shutt both won bronze medals in their categories.

The U12 Girls, U13 girls and U11 boys won as teams in the competition.

A recent cross country completion of mixed sixes, held at Dean Close School in Cheltenham against other Gloucestershire schools, resulted in more successes for the school.