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Jan 2011:
North West Counties title race
hots up once again
Yawar Abbas reports
At the Christmas break, the battle for the 2010/11 North
West Counties Division One championship looks to be heading
for a close finish, with six teams still in with a chance of
claiming the title. Incredibly, the excitement of last
season when Grove Park clinched the title with three
teams still in contention right up to the last round of
matches, could be surpassed with new contenders emerging
alongside some familiar names.
Once again, last season’s runners up, The Northern
are right in the mix, heading up the table, closely followed
by Prestwich club Fairways Lodge (formerly Village
Prestwich), Grove Park, New Brighton and 2009/10
Champions, Bowdon.
  The
league sprung to life on 19th October, when Fairways Lodge
fielded both Stewart Boswell and up and coming fellow
Aussie, Matt Karwalski, pushing their regular number
one Pete Billson down to three, for the visit of the
Northern. They duly crushed the Didsbury outfit 20 nil
sending a clear message of intent to the rest of the league.
 One
club that clearly got the message was Wigan, who the
following week were hosts to Fairways and ambushed the title
pretenders by fielding their own Aussie star, Aaron
Frankcomb along with Joel Hinds and Steve
Siveter. Unaware of the strength of their opponents,
Fairways arrived with their regular team led by Billson and
despite wins for Theo Woodward and Ben Blocksidge lower down
the order, were comprehensively outclassed at strings 1, 2
and 3, slumping to a 15-7 defeat.
Whilst Fairways were grabbing the headlines, Grove Park and
New Brighton were steadily climbing the league with
Lawrence Delasaux and the Hibberd twins, Ky and
Morgan putting together consistent performances for Grove
and Mark and Ian Thomason doing likewise for New
Brighton. Unfortunately for Grove Park, new signing Tom
Pashley, brought in as cover for Delasaux was diagnosed
with glandular fever in November, leaving the Stockport club
understrength in the run up to Christmas, which included
games against most of their title rivals. As expected, the
Northern and New Brighton inflicted defeats on the reigning
champions leaving them over 20 points off the pace going
into the final round of matches before the Christmas break.
In the final week, the Northern lost narrowly to a resurgent
Lancashire Health and Rackets team led by Shaun Le Roux
and including the rapidly improving Matt Sidaway,
whilst on the same night Grove Park welcomed back Delasaux
from tournament commitments, to lead his team to a
comprehensive win over second placed Fairways Lodge. With
third and fourth placed teams, New Brighton and Bowdon both
losing, the top of the league was once again too tight to
call.
There would be one final twist, when it was announced that
Manchester University would be withdrawing their team
from the league with immediate effect, with all points
scored against them declared void. Once the adjustment has
been made to the league table, there will be a total of 18
points separating the top five teams, setting up what should
be an intriguing second half to the season.
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