The BIG match this week was Cheetham Hill vs Wigan. Prior to this, both teams had won all three of their matches, but something had to give, one team had to lose their winning streak. Both teams were without their top ranked players - Nick Wall and Charlie Lee for Cheetham, and Patrick Rooney for Wigan were all on tournament duty. On paper this match looked like it could go either way. Wigan started the night with a win at no.5, as the tall Nat Fairhurst beat Welsh No.3 lady, Lowri Roberts. Stephen Hearst against Ryan Atherton always had the potential to be close, and it was. Stephen is fit, Ryan is tricky - what a combo! Ryan valiantly fought back from a 2-0 deficit to level at 2-2, but ran out of steam as Stephen dominated the fifth game. Next followed three splendid performances from the Cheetham top order, especially from stand-in No.1 Jordan Hardwick, as they all won to claim a massively important 4-1 victory, quashing Wigan's dream start to the season. Jordan beat Kiwi tour pro Mason Smales 3-0, England U19 No.3 Caleb Boy beat Carlisle's Ben Hetherington 3-1, and coach Josh Taylor beat fellow coach Julian Tomlinson 3-1.

Warrington travelled to Alderley Edge and recorded a third straight win. I played my last match before undergoing a hip replacement, and hobbled to an entertaining victory against the ever powerful James Pickles. Mike Potter seemed in more pain than is usual for a squash player, and almost forced a deciding game against Charlie Cowie, but alas, his body rejected his brains desire!

Liverpool narrowly had their unbeaten run ended as Bowdon's Guyanese player, Samuel Ince claimed the decisive match with a thrilling 11-9 in the 5th victory against Josh Perkins, inflicting a painful first defeat on the scousers. 'Old timer' Pete Billson, who was crowned Cheshire Champion at the weekend (after he defected from his native Lancashire), impressively backed-up a tough weekend of squash by winning at No.2 vs Lewis Harding. There's life in the old dog yet.

Grove Park fielded a strong team with two New Zealanders and a South African all registering victories at numbers one, two and three, although Canada's Brett Schille, making his Northern debut, pushed Temwa Chileshe very hard in a terrific number one string match, which Temwa won 12-10 in the fourth.

The last fixture of the evening saw Wrexham narrowly beat The Northern Second Team, in a wonderfully exciting evening at the Welsh border town. The vital matches came at numbers one and five. Northern edged the number five match, with Max Gibbs defeating Steve Jenks. Max has spent most of his squash career playing second division squash and now gets to prove himself with the 'big boys' in Div One. Rhys Evans continued his great form by outlasting Egyptian Ali Khawas. Both players love to play fast, resulting in a thrilling game of squash between the two. The first four games were shared with only ever a few points separating the two players. In the fifth, Rhys managed to utilise his superior fitness to forge a lead which was eventually too big for Ali to claw back, winning the decider 11-7, to the roar of the faithful Welsh crowd as they cheered the local lad's victory.

There's no matches next week as the league enters the 'International Break' / half-term! We'll be back in two weeks on the 31st October where there's some more tasty fixtures, particularly with The Liverpool Lizards hosting Alderley Edge's Eagles, and The Warrington Wombats entertaining The Wrexham Wizards!

Andy Whipp