KRR-PRR Mob Match

The 2026 Mob Match took place on Tuesday 18th August.

Results, photographs and race report now available below!

The 2027 Mob Match will be on Kinross turf – watch this space!

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Inside five years and races, the PRR vs KRR Mob Match has established itself as a Club Classic. Read on to understand why!

A mob match 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, but let that not be held against a format which can be high-tension, tough of competition and big on drama.

2022 saw PRR challenge local friends-and-foes Kinross Road Runners to exactly this format of race, thereby inaugurating this fixture. It was a brave – and arguably foolish – throwing-down-of-a-gauntlet based on exuberance, curiosity and confidence. Perhaps unexpectedly, KRR won both the inagural matches (fiends that they are).

2023 saw numbers increase from 60ish to almost 100, and 2024 and 2025 saw us grow to 121 and 122 (resp). The Mob Match has firmly become A Thing.

The fixtures alternate between PRR and KRR as organisers each year; the 2025 races were on KRR territory so the matches migrate to the the Perth area in 2026.

The format

Here’s how it works:

Two matches occur together: one for the men and one for the ladies. In the inaugural year, these were run as one race overall. The second fixture saw them started separately (ladies starting 3 mins behind men). There was, afterwards, considerable favour for this format among the ladies racing and it has remained in place at all races since.

Each match is scored as per cross-country races: 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. 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.

Above: The starts of the 2026 men’s match and the 2025 ladies’ match

Mob matches are all about the winning club overall. It’s quite possible – nay, likely – 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 is declared triumphant overall. For a full explanation of how that works, and of a couple of other rules to govern unlikely (but possible) eventualities, see here.

One more rule of note to stop any use of ‘ringers’: a second-claim KRR or PRR member must have run 2 (two) SA-registered races (not just internal races, eg Target Zero etc) for their chosen team at the MM in the year before the race [not including the previous MM if it falls within that year].

The trophy and the first match

And what do they win? 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 KRR trophy fully adheres to this approach.

The choice of course for the match(es) emerged from the PRR 2021 (semi-virtual) Summer Series race that employed the ‘Not The Hermitage’ loop around Birnam: that is, along the Tay under Dunkeld Bridge, up into the forests above Inver and down the Inchewan Burn to finish above Dunkeld & Birnam railway station. Despite its obvious toughness (it climbs 160m), the course proved (broadly) popular with PRR runners and led club founder member Neil Muir to suggest a match or open race over its 8.8km (5½-miles). A venue-without-a-race had already emerged.

Birnam is famed for its links with Beatrix Potter. Registration occurred in the Beatrix Potter Garden. The choices of trophy (we credit here the genius and vision of James Waldie) rapidly reduced to one celebrating that greatest of all trail runners:

Above: the Mob Match trophy – Peter Rabbit in his virgin state (left), before being rudely defiled (right)

The race is now held each late August (this timing is not set in stone, but favoured to avoid holiday periods). The victorious club (ie across the two matches in any year) earns the right to paint Peter Rabbit’s coat in their club colours. He looks fine in both yellow and green, it emerges. One imagines that scarves, ear warmers etc (in yellow or green) cannot be far from joining his regalia.

A nerve-jangling wait for the (very close) results, MM2025

Results, race reports and course maps:

2026 – Kinclaven Woods – Perth win 2-0

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2025 – Crook of Devon – Perth win 1-1, 99.35% of points (a lower score here is better, 98%+ indicates a very close race)

  • Ladies – KRR 361, PRR 380 <19 score> – KRR win
  • Men – KRR 948-1024 <31 score> – PRR win
  • KRR ladies take 48.72% of points in their race, PRR men 48.07% in theirs – PRR win overall (by 0.65%)
  • Full race results
  • Press report
  • Course maps are as for the 2023 race (see below)
  • Photos

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2024 – Murthly – Perth win 2-0

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2023 – Crook of Devon – Kinross win 2-0

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2022 – Birnam – Kinross win 2-0

Current Rabbit Jacket Status: GREEN

Owing to PRR’s ultra-close victory in 2025, Peter Rabbit remains safely in proper Perthshire and not the outer northern commuter belt of Edinburgh. His coat remains PRR green (creating the false impression that he may just have been victorious at the Masters in Augusta). Long may it remain so and let all future matches be slightly less tense than 2025’s….

The struggle to keep that jacket green – or turn it yellow – will return to somewhere near Kinross in (we assume) August 2027. Watch this space and join the effort.

#retaintherabbit27