Last night (8th Nov) Goostrey hosted Northwich in the last preliminary round of this seasons John Ford. Goostrey fielded Cameron and Carl McGregor-Ogden with Jake Hartley, Pam Jeffs, Meriel Currie and new to John Ford Sharon Holford. Northwich, meanwhile, went with Grant Major, Peter Huggon, Jason Bonner, Katie Brown, Ann Lewis and an inexperienced but enthusiastic youngster - Ellie Corker.

Handicapping as always is harder when there are unknown players. However, given the intelligence we could garner it was decided to award Northwich some help to the tune of 66 points.

The match panned out as expected in a games win for Goostrey 6-3, however - in John Ford it is points that make prizes. Of the newcomers, Sharon did very well in the experienced company of Carl and Pam returning a full house of wins. For Northwich Ellie and partners, on the other hand, had a baptism of fire with games to 10,4, 8, 7, 7 and unfortunately 0. Notwithstanding, in theory that did not matter as the handicap could come to the rescue.

The match ended with a points win of 345 to 259 in Goostrey's favour. Even with the handicap Northwich fell 20 agonising points short on 325. Once again the handicappers did very well getting to 1.1 points a game difference. Thanks as always to them for their efforts and well done to both teams. Goostrey progress to the Quarter Finals in January.

Scoresheet attached.