Just three weeks into the South London & Kent Poo Alliance summer season, and it looks like it will be the most hotly contested, as the teams in third, fourth and fifth, leapfrogged the top two, after they both lost their unbeaten records.

Eltham Terrace Rovers surprisingly hit the top spot, with a big win over second placed, Falconwood Club.

The home side didn’t help themselves by only having four players but Paul Elford came out with some credit by winning half of his team’s four frames.

Elliott Giles and Ryan Francis were the inspiration behind Rovers, 3-0 & 11-4 victory, both winning all three of their frames.

Knocking Eltham Terrace Club A off the top and going into second themselves were Falconwood, after beating them, 3-0 in sets & 10-5 in frames.

The Pauls, Williams and Donohoe did most of the damage, both with an unbeaten brace.

Falcons jump into third, after a tense close match against Hotshots, with each set being won, 3-2.

The first set was poised at two all when Hotshots, Richard Chapman faced Dean de’Araujo and it was Chapman who gave his side the early lead.

Set two also went the distance and Hotshots were again relying on Chapman to bring it home but Falcons’ Mark Brinkley had other ideas, taking the frame to tie the match at one set and five frames all.

Falcons got the better of Hotshots in the final set,taking a, 3-1 lead to win the match, before Steve Krishnan won the last frame making the final score, 2-1 & 8-7 in Falcons favour.

Phil O’Kane was solid on his Falcons debut, winning two of his frames, as did Brinkley, de’Araujo and Tony Gear.

Neil Hall also won two of his three frames for Hotshots but Tony Wilson went one better with an unbeaten hat-trick.

Two newly promoted sides met in the final game of the division, both without a win so far, so something had to give and it was Bellegrove Social Club who narrowly beat Royal Oak, 2-1 & 9-6.

The Elite League is already looking very interesting, with no unbeaten teams and only three points separating the top seven teams.

This is not the case in either of the Tier Two divisions, as the top two in both are unbeaten and four points separate the top five, with a considerable gap growing between the rest.

There was an early top of the table clash in SLKPA Tier Two West, with Hustlers B taking on Sharks and both teams unbeaten records so far were on the line.

Sharks were quicker out of the blocks, taking the first four frames but Hustlers recovered to level the match, before Sharks took the last two frames of the second set to give them a cushion going into the final set.

Like the rest of the match, the last set was hard fought and went to the wire, where Joe Kane faced Sharks Arif Salih and it was Salih who held his nerve to give his side the, 2-1 & 9-6 triumph.

The game came down to who took their chances the best and no one did this better than Sharks team mates, Salih and Chris Mackenzie, both winning all three of their frames.

Joining Sharks at the top of the table and unbeaten are Bellegrove A, who didn’t have it all their own way against Happy Hustlers, despite the overall, 11-4 in frames score line.

Bellegrove took the first four frames, with Hustlers only male player, Danny Campbell preventing the whitewash with an excellent clearance.

Happy Hustlers put the smiles back on their faces by winning the first two frames of the second set and they went on to take the fourth frame to clinch the set, (3-2) and their first point of the season.

It was one set each and, 6-4 to Bellegrove going into the final set but none of the Hustlers could prevent the whitewash, with Bellegrove taking all five frames to win the match with an unusual, 2-1 & 11-4 score.

Bellegrove ended the night with three unbeaten players, Pat Melia with three frame wins, Terry Mitchell who won both his frames and Lynn Mayer-Bulbul successful in her only frame of the night.

Fox & Hounds picked up their first win of the season against fellow winless Academicals, although it was a close match with Fox taking each set, 3-2 for an overall, 3-0 & 9-6 victory.

The only unbeaten player on the night for either side was Fox’s Captain, Kerry Wyatt, who won all three of her frames.

It was an extremely tight match between Crayford Social Club Rugrats and Eltham Terrace Nuthouse, literally see-sawing one way then the other.

Nuthouse took the first set, 3-2 with Rugrats reversing that score in the second, to go into the final set all square, one all in sets and five all in frames.

Shane O’Reilly took the eleventh frame, with a break and dish, for Nuthouse, his third frame of the night, all against Adam Watts but Adam Hewson scored his own hat-trick in the next frame to level the match again.

The next two frames were shared, setting up a final frame decider between the two captains, Rugrats Scott Shephard and Craig Jones from Nuthouse, with the latter winning the frame and the match, 2-1 & 8-7 for his team.

I said last week that it looked like Pickwick were going to run away with SLKPA Tier Two East but Bellegrove Flyers had something else to say about that.

Getting off to a flyer were Bellegrove, taking the first set by 4 frames to 1, which included Paul Dawson escaping from a snooker to pot his last colour and landing perfectly on the black.

Pickwick regrouped for the second set, taking it, 3-2 but that still left the Flyers, 6-4 ahead in frames.

Keith Mitchell produced an excellent clearance to win his third frame of the night, giving Flyers the first frame of the last set and a chance of winning the match.

Richard Marsh gave them the match overall by taking the next frame but they still needed one more frame for the set and the match but Pickwick took the next two frames to tie the set at two all.

Paul Dawson, facing his old team performed a wonderful clearance to win his third frame of the night, giving Flyers the, 2-1 & 9-6 triumph.

Joining Flyers Mitchell and Dawson in scoring hat-tricks was Pickwick’s Paul Slater.

This result meant Pickwick slipped from first to third, with Flyers just behind them in fourth but still above them and unbeaten are Rose Inn and North Heath Social Club.

Rose Inn scored the biggest win in the division this week, beating CSC Mr’s & Miss Q’s, 3-0 & 11-4.

Dean Greaney-Parr got Rose Inn off to a great start with a 7-baller in the first set and followed that up with another in the last to give him an unbeaten hat-trick.

Also unbeaten for Rose were Jack Wilson, with two frame wins and Michael Bunn and Neil Mundy winning their only frames, with Mundy’s another 7-ball clearance to win the set.

Despite the big win, Rose can only make it into second place, as North Heath Social Club beat Foots Cray Social Club, 2-1 & 9-6 to take the top spot.

The damage was done in the first set, with North Heath taking a, 4-1 lead and even though Foots Cray took the second set, 3-2, North Heath never looked like relinquishing the overall lead and went on to take the final set, 3-2.

Paul Baker won all three of his frames for the victors and despite losing his 100% recorded for the season, Brett Crawley did win the deciding frame in the final set, although he did ride his luck, cannoning into the black when it was hanging over a pocket but fortunately for him it did not go down.

Eltham Terrace Rack Pack are still winless after this week’s defeat to Falconwood Club A.

Again the damage was done in the first set, with Falconwood winning it by 4 frames to 1 but Rack Pack rallied round and took the second set, 3-2 however, Falconwood reversed that in the final to set to win the match, 2-1 & 9-6.

There were solid undefeated performances from Falconwood’s Alastair Ladd and Lewis Hearn, scoring two out of two and three out of three respectively and they were joined by Rack Pack's Graham Levingbirdh a hat-trick.

For more information on the SLKPA including league tables visit our website at www.slkpa.com or contact our Secretary, Paul Gafa on 07443 456662 with any queries.

The league is looking at potential sponsors; any interested parties can also contact Paul Gafa.