A small but quality line-up of Southend’s youngsters hit the Chelmsford Indoor Centre for the Eastern Indoor Championships.

They collected no less than 13 medals with two of the outstanding youngsters, an under-15 and an under-13, enjoying remarkable personal success.

Mitchell Turffrey, whose best outdoor long jump last year was 4.89 metres, outleapt anything he has ever done before with a magnificent 5.48.

Having moved up an age group to under-15 this year, however, he found even that phenomenal improvement was good enough only for silver.

Young Charleen Kuzvidza produced stunning performances in three events. A huge leap of 4.14 earned her a silver in the long jump.

This eclipsed her county performance by 17cms and, clearly on a roll, she proceeded to produce two stunning performances — a huge 6.36 in the shot and a top 10 UK placing in the 60 with 8.5 secs. Both performances netted this relative newcomer gold medals.

The bronze medal in the under-13 60 was won by another Southend girl, Tinashe Mutsure with 8.9.

In the same training squad, Olivia Smith, who has not jumped competitively previously for the club, surprised herself with a 4.15 leap and a gold medal.

Jake King snatched the only under-17 gold in the sprint with 7.2.