With just eight games to go is it too early to start calling Brandhall & Quinton FC champions-elect? No doubt a number of other teams will have something to say about that, but a convincing 5-2 win over Hilly House puts them into a very strong position at the top of the table. Ten wins out of twelve is definitely title grabbing form. At the moment the team with the best chance of catching them is Crestwood Church FC, and they did themselves a massive favour as they claimed bragging rights in the Crestwood Church derby. It was always going to be a close game and the 2-1 scoreline reflects that.

Another close game saw Tipton Family Church FC come back from two very early goals to beat Midland Elite FC 3-2. ME are a hard team to beat and anyone that can take points from them will deserve to do so. Following on from their Summer Cup victory last week, is this a turning point in TFC's fortunes? They are up to fourth in the league and one of the teams that has an outside chance still of catching Brandhall.

St Matthew's made hard work of defeating bottom club Stour Valley Rovers, and at the end did well to hang on to their 3-2 lead. On their day Stour are putting in some incredible performances, it's just consistency that is letting them down. And talking of consistency, Kingsway are turning into the draw specialists, as they once more shared the points. This time it was with Ebenezer FC, who moved into double figures as far as league points are concerned.

We always stress how important it is for team officials to keep checking their forum. That is particularly important this week, because as we are ready to publish the February fixtures, two teams are currently in the position whereby they are more than £10 in arrears. The rule, introduced this season to combat the problem of teams failing to meet their responsibility, is that to be included in fixtures, fines must be below £10. As well as the two teams concerned, others need to make sure that this coming week's money bags keep them above the cut-off figure.