Pudsey Congs relentless march towards a third successive league title continued this week, with an excellent 4-1 away win at St Andrews A. Nigel Brayshaw was the only home player to win, defeating Phil Hirst 200-193. The Congs winners were Richard Bowes 200-146 over Neil Lee, Dave Hirst 200-133 against Graham Pearson and John Hirst 200-176 over Gary Rogers. Richard was again in good form with breaks of 66 and 39 on a table he has really taken to very well this season.

At Princeville, St Andrews B ensured their efforts to snatch the title from Congs was still a (nothing more than remote) possibility with a three and a half to one and a half point win. The scorecard shows that John Bedford and Dave Smith were level pegging on 171 at the bell, with a 23 from John being the highlight. Steve Boocock continued his good season with a 192-168 win for the visitors over Brian Haigh. James Butcher's win for Princeville by 200-164 over Steve Clark included a 21 break. The best break of the evening though, was a 25 by Norman Procter in his 200-170 over Ed Lawson who was making his seasonal debut for Princeville. Well done to Norman.

Bradford Deaf Centre also kept a very small hope of title success alive with a 3-2 win over Littlemoor. The Deaf Centre put the usual opponents up against each other first off with Jeremy Dixon facing John Allan and Brian Robinson against myself. John took an early lead and at one stage was probably 50 in front. However, Jeremy fought back well and just managed to pip John to the post 180-178 at the bell. A 27 break from him just came at the right time. The least said about my game the better... However, Brian did play very well; thrashing me 200-134 with a good 3 or 4 minutes to spare. So, 2-0 up at halfway, was just what the Deaf Centre needed. A nip and tuck game then ensued between Deaf Centre's Ihjaz Hussain and Ralph Allan with Ralph coming out on top (just) by 191-185. On the other table Littlemoor's Graham Tudor's good recent form continued with a comfortable 200-164 win over Ian Ford, but that wasn't enough to get his team the aggregate point after Brian Robinson's big win over the League Secretary.

This coming week, Pudsey Congs could potentially take the title early, if they can inflict a whitewash over Princeville and the other results go their way. Littlemoor are at home to St Andrews A in a dress rehearsal of the Team KO final and Bradford Deaf Centre will visit St Andrews B.

Mick Hirst also had a good win 200-137 over Stephen Kershaw this week in the Individual Merit. There's now just the one remaining match to play in the first round proper of that competition between John Allan and James Butcher. Arrangements are being made to get that done soon.

Please also be aware that the next League Meeting will be on Friday the 22nd March at St Andrews at 7:30pm and at which we will be drawing the next rounds of the Individual Merit and Pairs competitions.

David Howarth

League Secretary