The main event on Saturday was of course the Division One National Championship which took place on the three canals in the Stafford area.

Not local of course but it involved a number of teams and individuals from our neck of the woods, writes Barry Mallett.

Sad to say that none featured in either the individual or team honours but the venue favoured those that are more used to the canal set up.

In the event, a fancied team, in the shape of Shakespeare Redditch, won it by a street and came home in front of another strong favourite, Collins Green by the large margin of nearly 60 points.

After that, the procession was led by a good Doncaster team, who were themselves a surprise package in actually recording the top weight, and from that third place right down to 15th position, was covered by only a hundred points.

The match produced better results than expected with good weights taken from all sections and double figures required to win any one of those.

Individually the match was won from the middle of A section with a near 30lbs haul taken by Dave Trafford. He finished with nearly 3lbs to spare over Pete Close in second and a further 2lbs down to Sean Mulheir in third, both of them in H section which seemed to produced the more consistent results.

Having said that both A and J sections also contributed well and surprisingly the average weight came in at well over 3lbs.

Teams:- 1 Shakespeare Redditch 607 pts 29.08kgs: 2 Collins Green 549pts 26.49kgs; 3 Daiwa Doncaster 522pts 34.39kgs; 4 Team Last Cast 514pts 29.06kgs; 5 Fox Match Tipton 488 22.26kgs.

Individuals:- 1 Dave Trafford Mosella Lostock Tackle B 12.340kgs; 2 Peter Close Yarm Angling 11.140kgs; 3 Sean Mulheir Team Last Cast 11.0610kgs; 4 Scott Geenes Starlets AS 9.790kgs; 5 John Deakin Daiwa Doncaster 8.930kgs.

On Sunday, the Boston & D.A.A Clubs championship could boast some equally impressive weights.

Fished on the Windsor Bank section of the Bargate Drain, the vast majority of the 30 anglers involved brought over 2lbs to scales with 6lbs and more winning all sections.

The match though belonged to Craig Butterfield who stuck to pole tactics to take one good bream and a few large skimmers using worm, and then switching to pinky to make up his winning catch with about the same weight of small fish.

Three bream, plus a few skimmers made up all of Frank Scrupps' weight, his favoured quivertip and worm method clinching second ahead of Dave Simpson who used similar to land four good bream for third place.

A couple of good sized bream brought fourth position for Grimsby's Len Gollings and after that the likes of Paul Webster and Jerry Clifton managed double figure nets of small roach and skimmers to head the rest of the field.

Nip and tuck in the team battle but the Browning BAC Red team eventually triumphed on a points basis, beating the Grimsby outfit into second by a single point with Stickney AC again doing well in third.

Teams:- 1 Browning BAC Red 22pts; 2 Grimsby 21pts; 3 Stickney AC 19pts.

Individuals:- 1 Craig Butterfield BAC Red 24lbs 4ozs; 2 Frank Scrupps Stickney AC 18lbs 14ozs; 3 Dave Simpson BAC Red 18lbs; 4 Len Gollings Grimsby 17lbs 11ozs; 5 Paul Webster BAC Black12lbs 2ozs; 6 Jerry Clifton Fishtoft AC 12lbs 1ozs.

Next Sunday will see the BDAA Annual match take place on the same venue and those interested should ring Barry Mallett on 01205 871815 to book in. Tickets £3.50 plus pools on the morning.

On to the Monday evening sweep and, taking bream out of the equation, those pegs on Windsor Crescent, used in the previous day's match, came up trumps once again.

Small roach and skimmers were the target for most and no better exponent of the pole and pinky method than Ben Brighton to bring another good net of those to scales.

Those tactics alone gave him a comfortable winning margin but a late switch to hemp brought better roach on to feed and boosted him to an easy victory.

Janusz Kedzierski gave chase from two pegs away but could not live with the final surge and had to settle for the runner up spot, as did the likes of Terry Gooding and Andy Dillamore in taking third and fourth places respectively.

1 Ben Brighton 11lbs 14ozs; 2 Janusz Kedzierski 6lbs 15ozs; 3 Terry Gooding 6lbs 10ozs; 4 Andy Dillamore 6lbs 8ozs.

This week's Monday evening sweep, Windsor Bank at the earlier time of 5.30pm.