Good afternoon all and welcome to this first post following the start of the 2024/25 season.

St Andrews B and Bradford Deaf Centre were very quick off the blocks when they agreed to play their match a week early, due to St Andrews B being aware they would not have players available for the start of Week 1. Thanks to Bradford Deaf Centre for agreeing to this.

There were just 15 points in it for the aggregate point, but not all games were that close. There were comfortable wins for Peter Wood (BDC) and Steve Boocock (St A B). Peter beat Steve Clark 200-160 and Steve B beat Ian Ford 200-148. The closer wins were Jeremy Dixon for the Deaf Centre (over Dave Smith) by 168-153 and St Andrews B's debutant, John Bedford (over Ijaz Hussain) by 169-151. So, a 3-2 win for St Andrews B to give them a winning start.

At St Andrews on Thursday, their A team welcomed Princeville. It was an even closer one for the aggregate point, with only 10 points separating the two teams, and 2-2 in terms of player wins. Nigel Brayshaw and Gary Rogers were the winners for St Andrews A, with wins over Graham Bentley and Martyn Britton respectively. The winning visitors were James Butcher against Neil Lee and Keith Tomlinson over St Andrews league debutant John Rider... welcome to the league John... not a bad effort for your first match... I'm sure a first win is just around the corner.

At Littlemoor, the league title holders, Pudsey Congs were the visitors. It wasn't a great start for the home team, when there was last minute confusion about who was actually playing! Thankfully, Littlemoor have had Club Steward Alan Mazurke registered for a number of seasons, for such an eventuality. So, yet another league debutant was hastily called into the fray... and he made a very good fist of it as well, going down by just 200-181 to Congs John Hirst. In the other three games, Littlemoor's Dave Howarth beat Dave Hirst 171-140, John Allan beat Mick Hirst 153-131 and Peter Allan defeated Phil Hirst 200-148 and included a 23 break in that, taking just 35 minutes to complete his win! So, a very good win for Littlemoor, despite the earlier confusion, which gives them the early advantage in the race for the title.

This coming week, there's a derby at St Andrews, and I have been advised this one is being played on Monday evening. Littlemoor are away at Princeville and Pudsey Congs will be attempting to drag themselves off their unfamiliar spot in the table, when Bradford Deaf Centre will be calling in.

I'll be posting a Players Table after Week 3.

Good luck all for the coming weeks and I'll be seeing you all again soon.

David Howarth

League Secretary

Good evening all. I hope you are all just about ready and looking forward to the coming season?

Following the League Committee meeting on Friday this week, we assessed all Player Handicaps. The new handicaps are published on the appropriate page. I will also email them to some of you (whose email addresses I have) in case you want to print it off, for your notice boards. If you don't need it, or you are aware that someone else will print it off for your Institute, then just ignore the email.

I'll take this opportunity to welcome two new players (MJ Lloyd, who will play for the Deaf Centre and to John Ryder, who will play for St Andrews A)

Over a week ago I was made aware that St Andrews B were going to have a problem with player availability in the first week of the season (and this is despite the fact that John Bedford has transferred to them from Princeville). Apparently, the problem is due to two of their players going on holiday. However, contact has been made with Bradford Deaf Centre (their first opponents) and they have agreed to bring the fixture forward to this coming Thursday, the 19th September. Thanks to all involved for making this happen, to avoid a late cancellation and thanks also to the Bradford Deaf Centre players for their cooperation.

David Howarth

League Secretary

Further update - we have had to make an amendment to the fixtures - James B has just noticed (today) that we had Littlemoor with 3 successive weeks at home and then 3 successive weeks away (which wouldn't have been great!). We have therefore reversed the fixtures around in the "offending" middle weeks. The Fixtures and Results page does therefore now show the correctly amended weeks... 

I believe some of you (Ian Ford!) may have already printed them off... please accept our apologies for that, as you will need to print them off again! 

David H

Good evening all. The new season is almost upon us and I have updated the Fixtures and Results page with all the fixtures and dates for the whole of 2024/25. Thanks go to James Butcher for re-writing them, as for the last few seasons we have quite simply been replicating the previous seasons list of league matches. However, James has changed the order around and so the new season's fixtures don't now correspond to those of last season. We've done this just to try create a bit more variation.  

Most of you should now be aware that the new Pro-Cup balls will be in use from the start of the season and I have already distributed them to Littlemoor, Bradford Deaf Centre, Princeville and St Andrews; who no doubt will have started to practice with them. If Pudsey Congs want me to get theirs to them, then please get in touch and let me know when someone will be at the venue and I will drop them off (it's only 5 minutes from where I live). 

Please also be aware that the pre-season meeting will take place on Thursday the 12th September at St Andrews at 7:30pm and at which we'll be assessing all players handicaps. 

It's also been mentioned to me that there will be some player unavailability in the first week, due to holidays (not again!), So please be aware that, rather than cancelling matches, there is nothing to stop Captains/players contacting opposing teams to rearrange mutually convenient date(s) to get an individual game or games played BEFORE the scheduled fixture date. If anyone needs anyone else's contact details, then I can help. The last thing we want is matches being cancelled at the last minute, especially when there is an opportunity to make alternative arrangements. 

David Howarth

League Secretary