A very early update from me this week. 

I'd just about finished updating this page when my Facebook "pinged" with the result of an Individual Merit result played this afternoon, so I simply inserted this paragraph at the top ... I bet the ink is still wet on Princeville's marker board! Anyhow, Stephen Kershaw has beaten Congs Phil Hirst 200-163. Stephen's comment states "Home advantage and the best of early opportunities were the difference". 

Last night it was back to the league competition, after three weeks of the Team Knockout plus a week of preliminary rounds for the Pairs and Individual Merit competitions. The two teams who were successful in qualifying for the Team KO Final in April, were both quite well beaten on their return to the regular league format.

At Princeville, St Andrews A were the visitors. I have received the following report on the match from Princeville's James Butcher:-

"First up was Graham (Pearson) v myself and Keith (Tomlinson) v Gary (Rogers). The handicap difference didn't change early doors. However, the opening happened when Graham had two unfortunate moments in successive visits. His cue ball was up against the top cushion and he hit the wall whilst playing his shot, followed by a foul stroke. From then on, I halved the deficit and got into parity fairly quickly at around 105pts Graham had little in the way of leaves and had to dig out, whilst I registered double figure breaks on regular visits and took my lead beyond 40pts. Graham enjoyed a couple of fluent scoring runs in between, but had little points to defend and I reached to 200. On the other table, Gary got off to his usual good start and led for the duration. Keith did get within parity at one stage, but a well timed break in the teens by Gary at the business end got him close to the finishing post and onto the 200 mark.

Next up was Brian (Haigh) v Nigel (Brayshaw) and John (Bedford) v Neil (Lee). Brian was on the front foot from the beginning and soon cleared the deficit at the 120pt mark with consistent scoring. Making it difficult for Nigel to get a foothold and play his trademark high octane game. The game was finished in 42 minutes. The other match ended up as an exciting encounter. Scoring was a bit slow to begin with, although John had the better start; Neil played a dead eye cannon with a large degree of difficulty and his game sparked to life. The table did not take kindly to John's soft touch stroke play and missed a short range shot in the middle bag that was easier to score. Neil returned the favour in a similar fashion. As John's scoring run slowed down, Neil channelled his inner Judd Trump and played a few quality long range pot reds that would have whipped a rapturous applause in front of a paying audience at a WST ranking event. Neil enjoyed a seemingly comfortable lead of 20pts plus. But John silently found his way back into the game and was 14pts beind in the final minute. John was on a break and played a few long range in offs to get the balls grouped together in a more promising position.  A crucial cross loser yellow was played in the penultimate shot, leaving a long loser red shot with ball in hand.  However, the yellow landed awkwardly for John to cue cleanly and was forced to play a forcing shot.  John attempted the in off, but could not get clean contact with the red and his cueball rattled the jaw of the pocket. The bell went and Neil won by a single point. 

A mostly enjoyable night by those in attendance and a good way to start the new year."

Thanks very much for that James, so that 3-2 win for Princeville lifts them from joint bottom, to one above the foot. 

At Bradford Deaf Centre, Pudsey Congs had their run of five successive 4-1 wins broken. It still ended with a win for the league leaders, but this time by just 3-2.  The scoresheet shows that Bradford Deaf Centre put up quite a bold showing though, with Ian Ford beating Phil Hirst 200-191 and Ijaz Hussain had a close looking encounter with Dave Hirst, but finished just on top by 184-180. However, for Congs, John Hirst beat the Deaf Centre's reserve, Graham Lambert, 185-170. Then on the top board, Congs Richard Bowes continued his rich vein of form, beating Jeremy Dixon by over 100 with a 194-92 win. Breaks of 58,43, 33 and a 41 unfinished enabled him to initially peg back the handicap deficit and to then streak clear, reaching just 4 short of the 200 before the 50 mins were up. 

At St Andrews, the B team took on Littlemoor. The visitors arrived with some confidence, particularly as they had disposed of this evening's opponents only recently in the Team KO competition. John Allan got Littlemoor off to a decent start, defeating Dave Smith 179-157 and this was despite a very good 30 break from Dave early on in the piece. However, Dave Howarth was then frustrated by St Andrews Norman Procter, whose good potting added a fair bit of good fortune, carried him through to a 193-152 win to draw the home team level. Steve "Whirlwind" Clark then put the home team in front with an excellent 200-183 win over Ralph Allan inside 40 minutes. Steve knocked in a 21 break in this encounter and is also the first player to beat Ralph (in this league) this season. Graham Tudor was unable to get the visitors any further points in his loss to an in-form Steve Boocock 200-152, who closed out with an unfinished and stylish 17. 

That 4-1 win enabled St Andrews B to gain a point on Congs and puts them now just 2 points adrift of the leaders. The Deaf Centre remain third but are now 7 and a half points off the top and a gap of 8 is between them and 4th placed St Andrews A. Princeville are just one point behind them in 5th and Littlemoor are again propping up the rest and will need more than a miracle between now and March to even threaten the top two!

This coming week it's bottom versus top. There's another derby at St Andrews and in Bradford, the Deaf Centre will be climbing Great Horton Road to Princeville.

I'll update the Players Table at some stage, hopefully this weekend. Malcolm has advised me he may have some old handbooks that he can lend me, to make some further additions to the Highest Breaks gaps on the 'Past Winners' page. I'll update those records also when I can wrestle the handbooks from him.

Good luck for the coming week and I hope you all have a very happy, healthy and successful 2024.

Dave Howarth

League Secretary