ANY thoughts that Spring View were pretenders to the Bolton Association's title challenge were quickly dispelled by their emphatic victory over current champions Little Hulton.

But their place at the top of the table could face a threat from two other form teams, Edgworth and Clifton.

All three teams won and all were grateful to their bowlers.

Spring View's Alan Shields knocked the heart out of Little Hulton's batting with four cheap wickets and although home skipper Rob Clews hit 39 not out, Hulton were still dismissed for 135. Pro Paul Matthews hit 58 and Nigel Geary was unbeaten on 40 as Spring View reached the target with only two wickets down.

Clifton had a ten wicket win over Blackrod after they had held the visitors to 101-9. Tony Potter had 4-16 and pro Mark Price 3-15 before he went on to hit 31 not out in a winning reply of 102-0. The Clifton batting, however, was dominated by Phil Royle who scored an unbeaten 63.

Edgworth went to Atherton and had the home side all out for 93. David Beswick was the bowling hero taking 5-26 and although Atherton gained some moderate bowling success, Edgworth won by a four wicket margin.

Standish hit the day's top score and had the two top individual batting and bowling performers.

A two off the last ball of the innings earned Mark Ramsdale his century out of a total of 211-7 and with pro Andy Cumberbatch recording 7-46 Adlington were always finding it tough to stay the pace. Phil Shovelton 35 and Eddie Haddon 32 managed to tighten things up and at the end of the day they were unlucky not to pick up a bonus point

Astley and Tyldesley were eight wicket winners at Darcy Lever after they had dismissed the home side for a modest 128. That was mainly through the 6-60 bowling return of Simon Nicklin while pro Charles Dagnall tied things up at the other end with 3-35 off 20 overs. A & T then responded with 129-2 openers Gorse and Millward hitting 40 each.

Golborne were also among the runs. They hit 208-7, Andy Mullaney 54 and Graham Marston 53 off 38 balls. Walshaw, however, picked themselves up from 27-4 to end the day on 150-7.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.