With the league season now in full swing, Littlemoor's fine form continued this week with a crushing (and possibly season defining) 6-0 win over second placed Bradford Deaf Centre. That convincing win propelled them to 10 points clear of the Deaf Centre, who still cling onto second place. John Allan took full advantage of a running change against Jeremy Dixon after a slow start and was 161-133 in front at the bell. Ralph Allan also just came out on top against Ihjaz Hussain after a close encounter 185-171. Then, in the later two games, Graham Tudor knocked in a 24 just at the right time to see off Brian Robinson after Dave Howarth had sealed a good win over Ian Ford. Dave wanted just 5 to win with 15 minutes left, but took a further 10 minutes to reach the 200! 

At St Andrews, Princeville were up against the B team. There was just the one winner for the visitors, in Edward Lawson, who recorded a 199-180 win over Norman Procter. St Andrews B's victors were Dave Smith against Keith Tomlinson, Steve Clark against Graham Bentley and John Bedford over his former team-mate James Butcher. I'm advised by James though that his game was interrupted by a third-party user of the building simply walking into the billiard room at a really crucial stage. James said that his concentration was badly affected by this, and his 26 break should have been more, and would probably have led to him winning... I must admit, some of the noise that often comes from 'above' and outside the room at St Andrews can be off-putting... not an ideal situation at times. 

At Pudsey Congs, as is often the case with their fixtures against St Andrews A, the 'who plays who' doesn't follow the usual convention (Captain's prerogative, I suppose!). Mick Hirst was promoted to top board and faced St Andrews A's Graham Pearson. Two good breaks of 30 and 29 (both biggest this week) must have gone a long way to ensuring a big 200-129 win for Mick. I'm not sure who played second and third, but Congs Richard Bowes appears to have been out of form... either that or Neil Lee has successfully kept him quiet as he won in comfortable fashion 197-123. John Hirst was then beaten by St Andrews A's Gary Rogers 200-154 and so that made the final game a 3 pointer. Both Congs Phil Hirst and his opponent Nigel Brayshaw were unaware of this, as Richard Bowes Facebook comment reads "Winners won big at Congs tonight. We chose not to tell Phil he was playing a 3 pointer, and in the winning of it, he spared our blushes". A 200-141win for Phil did indeed secure his team, the win point, the aggregate point and also the return fixture bonus point... he must have been as "well chuffed" as his team mates when he was made aware of that!

This coming week, Littlemoor have what could be a banana-skin as they travel to St Andrews A, who beat them 3-2 in week 4 and they will also have 94 points to peg back if they want to win the bonus point. Princeville will welcome Bradford Deaf and St Andrews B will be visiting Congs at School Street.

At the league meeting on Friday we drew out Groups 1 and 2 in the Team KO competition also and set the 3 weeks of matches which commence on the 5th December. We also drew the Individual Merit and Pairs Competition. They can be viewed on the appropriate pages.

By David Howarth

League Secretary