Last week Bradford Deaf Centre got themselves to within two and a half points of leaders Pudsey Congs when defeating them 3-2 at Congs. However, this week proved the theory that in this league season "anyone can now beat anyone"...  as they actually went down at home by three and a half to one and a half points to bottom of the table Princeville. The Deaf Centre's only winner was top board Jeremy Dixon who had a comfortable 154-115 win over James Butcher. Ihjaz Hussain and Princeville's Brian Haigh couldn't be separated at the bell when both were on 145. In another relatively low scoring game John Bedford beat Deaf Centre's Brian Robinson 180-159. Martyn Britton was the only player all evening to reach 200 in his win over Ian Ford who scored 168. Jeremy had the highest break of the evening with a 34.

In the St Andrews derby, it was the A team who finished on top by 4-1. I'm guessing though that they came from one down as Neil Lee lost 200-161 to Dave Smith, who is St Andrews B's regular "first up". The A team then followed that up with wins from Graham Pearson 200-198 (close!) over Steve Boocock; Nigel Brayshaw had a strong looking win over Steve Clark by 200-164 and then Gary Rogers beat League President Malcolm Barnes 180-172. 

At Pudsey Congs, the home team were looking for revenge for their 4-1 defeat at Littlemoor in the second week of this year. Their revenge was indeed sweet, as they returned the favour with a 4-1 home win. Arriving early, and with some uncertainty about whether John or Peter Allan would actually be playing due to John being tied up elsewhere, and with no one else from Littlemoor present; I was pitched into the fray against... Richard Bowes. I'm not generally known as one for "blowing his own trumpet" (I hope!) but considering where I've been in the Players Table all season, I thought I did okay. I set off with 3 early breaks into the late teens, which (Richard later said) put him under pressure. However, with five good breaks into the thirties (31,35,32, 33 and 38) Richard eventually beat me 199-185. Phil Hirst was then rampant over Littlemoor's Graham Tudor (who has been in some good form recently) 200-141. By this time John Allan had arrived and was probably happy to see that Richard had already played. However, Dave Hirst played very well to beat him 194-172 and included a 33 break in doing so. Now Littlemoor were staring down the barrel, Players Table topper, Ralph Allan, came to the rescue against (second in the same table) John Hirst with a 200-176 win to save a few blushes for the visitors!

That 4-1 win gives Congs a 5 point cushion and with a match in hand, it now looks like they have one hand (at least) on the league trophy. However, they have a potential banana skin to side-step this week at in-form St Andrews A. Littlemoor are at Bradford Deaf Centre who will be trying to hold second spot and bottom of the table Princeville will be trying to overcome St Andrews B who have struggled lately with player availability.

David Howarth

League Secretary