Winter underdogs unexpectedly warm to the task YOU could not get odds on red-hot favourites MGB before their match last week with sacrificial lambs Winter Hill.

Yet by a combination of collective steely determination and at times ferocious assault, the underdogs created an upset of near biblical proportions.

For the victors, Mark Perks had perhaps his finest winter hour with his chip and charge ground strokes and his spring-heeled, rubber-jointed net play. Thrice in the men's set, Steve Greenhalgh and John Barrow threatened to establish a match-winning lead; thrice Perks denied them with ice-nerved, accurate serving. Perks' lady colleagues Vanessa Edwards and Shirley Sharples contributed no less. Each coiffured to kill, their play was only marginally less deadly. Mrs Edwards' cavortings displayed the whole range of her shots; angled drives set up a glut of net chances; she smashed with confidence and dispatched high backhand volleys with studied nonchalance. Mrs Sharples was also at her inimitable best: tactically astute, her deceptive court pace allowing for some startlingly unexpected net interceptions, and woe betide anyone who moved too early at the net.

On top of this was the inexhaustible support play and encouragement of Trevor Taylor, the original human dynamo, whose wholehearted, optimistic galloping round court, kamikaze net play and all-round enthusiasm kept the mood going.

It wasn't easy. John Barrow's beefy serving won easy points; Georgie Barrow was Madame Guillotine herself at the net and Greenhalgh's play was, relatively, of Gulliver dimensions.

In a similar vein, Allsorts upset the natural order with their defeat of reigning champions Holcombe Brook A. Again, a team effort -- the ladies providing the dreadnought defence and, properly, the men foraging aggressively. "Sorcery, Craft and Cunning For Hire", Ilona Kilburn and Sue McClelland, those Longsight Lorelei, have long combined their defensive skills to lure unwary opponents to bewildered defeat with simple tactics: either "rope-a-dope" or "lob-a-slob" -- absorb heavy attacks with pace-killing, astutely-placed returns until attack burns out and in extremis, take the heat out with an unnervingly accurate, aerial bombardment of the baseline. Add to this from Mrs M some leaping, lunging, twisting, traction-tempting retrieving.

Cometh the hour, cometh the son -- David Lloyd introduced this week another Bleakley Babe in the distinctive form of Ian Roscoe, who on facial and verbal interrogation proved to be the son of Longsight's gnarled and durable Bill Roscoe. David Lloyd extended their unbeaten streak. Roscoe junior played a full part, possessed of a good serve and a promising all-round game -- talents inherited presumably from his Mum. RESULTS: Division One: Bolton CC 38 Walkers C 17; Allsorts 37 Holcombe Brook A 26.

Division Two: Winter Hill 34 MGB 31; Eagley 30 HRM A 14; Bradshaw 42 Harwood 15.

Division Three: David Lloyd 30 Bolton School B 22.