City of Birmingham avenged defeat by Ealing on the opening day of the Division Four season with a thrilling 13-11 victory in the return at Walsall Gala Baths.

It means that, with all teams having played eight games, the Midlanders go into their next matches at Crawley on 20/21 October with a slender one point lead at the top of the table ahead of Ealing and University of Bristol.

Birmingham knew they had to beat Ealing to maintain their championship ambitions after dropping a point earlier in the weekend to a much improved City of Cambridge side.

Prospects hardly looked good for Birmingham towards the end of the third period when Ealing, whose cosmopolitan squad includes players from Lithuania, Greece, Iran, Turkey, Spain, Guatemala and the Netherlands, held a comfortable 9-6 lead.

With five minutes left, however, Birmingham had recovered to 10-10, setting up a nail-biting finish.

Johan van der Flier edged Ealing ahead again at 11-10, equalised by Matt Hook with two minutes to go.  Then Matt Foulds took over, scoring breakaway goals with a minute left and then just 19 seconds from the final whistle. Foulds finished with five goals. Influential Gary Tonks added three. Van der Flier netted four for Ealing and Andrius Jankunas two.

The finale of Birmingham’s clash with Cambridge was just as dramatic – although with a slightly different twist. This time, it was Birmingham who faded in the final stages, allowing the opposition to recover from 10-8 down to draw 10-10.

Steve Cooke began the Cambridge fightback when he scored with just over two minutes remaining. Birmingham called a time-out, but could not force another score and there were just seven seconds left when Stuart Notman’s cool lob from seven metres levelled an excellent match. Tonks claimed five for Birmingham and Nick Ludford three for Cambridge.

Bristol University stayed in the promotion race with wins over Croydon (8-5) and Weymouth & Portland (12-9) but suffered their second defeat of the season – 16-11 to Ealing, whose chief scorers were Linas Liudzius (4), Spyridon Tzamtzis (3) and Vincent Torres (3).

Ed Stevens scored four in Weymouth & Portland’s first league win – 16-9 over bottom club Basingstoke.

Jason Culloo hit four for Newcastle, but couldn’t prevent his side losing 10-6 to Croydon, for whom Brennan Heath netted three.