GOLBORNE, the newly crowned Association champions, began their reign with a defeat - at the hands of their predecessors Little Hulton.

Last season's champs fought their way back from 30-5 to 182-8, Mike Howard and Mike Edwards leading the way to a 27 run win as Golborne were dismissed for 155.

The penultimate day of the Association season brought out some fine individual performances with Spring View professional Paul Matthews leading the way.

He hit a superb century in the winning draw against Astley & Tyldesley and was last man out on exactly 100 in a total of 209.

Astley and Tyldesley were never in reach of that, their only consolation being a draw as they held out at 140-6 with Alan Shields and Andy Fox each claiming three wickets. Atherton's Phil West reached 1,000 runs for the season as he hit 89 in a total of 191-9 against Clifton but Phil Royle took the home side to victory with 84 and Jim Ainscough was unbeaten on 48 in a reply of 192-4.

Blackrod pro Terry Southall's first nine overs against Adlington were all maidens and he went on to record16 of them as well as picking up five wickets for 18 runs. That left Adlington 103 all out and Blackrod won it with seven wickets to spare.

British Aero picked up a 14 run win after reducing Elton from 67-0 to 159 all out. John Nuttall took his wicket total to 99 with 7-76 after teenager Matthew Syddall had hit his maiden senior half century in an unbeaten 75 out of a total of 173-5.

Jamie Taylor had a fine performance with the ball as his 5-27 helped dismiss Walshaw for a meagre 80. Rejuvenated Darcy Lever polished that off with four wickets down, Wayne Hopkinson 29. Standish, bowled out for 36 by Walshaw last week, fared only marginally better this week totalling 60 at home to Edgworth. Paul Hassan scored 30 of the runs, coming back to the crease after being struck by a ball from Nigel Toung who had figures of 6-20. Danny Beswick had 2-6 in a fine all round performance that also saw him hit 60 in an Edgworth total of 150-9.

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