The inaugural Dundee Road Runners vs Perth Road Runners parkrun Mob Match was held at Perth parkrun on Saturday 15th February 2025. A fantastic 141 runners contested the affair, which resulted in a 2-0 win for DRR. Full scores and results are here and below; a brief report appear below.
The 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 was new for 2025. PRR had discovered the fun of Mob Matches (DRR had yet to). We don’t currently have the resource/bandwidth to run another stand-alone MM in our busy year, so we were delighted that Perth parkrun allowed us to hold a parkrun Mob Match within the usual parkrun. The idea is to alternate the fixture between Perth and Dundee parkruns each year.
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.
The trophy
The obvious derision/bragging rights set aside, mob match trophies are known for their quirkiness and individuality. They tend to require a tongue placed firmly in one’s cheek and relate to the nature or location of the event. The PRR vs DRR trophy fully adheres to this approach. And it’s homespun too. The design credits go to Dundee RR (and especially their Gillian Gibson) for this, a crocheted, two-foot-tall roadrunner (one word, not two, in this rare instance). Doubtless, it will soon have a name, a club scarf, a plinth etc, showing the story.
Race results
2025 – at Perth parkrun – Dundee win 2-0
- Ladies – PRR 919, DRR 690 <28 score, 31 on each team>
- Men – PRR 1339, DRR 1289 <36 score, 39 DRRs, 40 PRRs>
- Full race results
- Press report (coming soon)