Astley & Tyldesley travelled to Heckmondwike in determined mood to avenge the previous year's controversial narrow Northern Cup defeat at the hands of Tameside at Bury. In their programme notes, the Heckmondwike club made A & T strong favourites to win the event.

After a last place by Damien Hack in the opening heat, Remi Burchardt and Chris Finnigan recorded wins to put A & T firmly in contention. However, Damian Zareba was excluded after executing a perfect flyer in heat 6, and another exclusion, this time to Burchardt for crossing the inside edge in heat 10, left A & T back in 5th place and trailing the leaders Tameside by six points at the interval. The second half saw a magnificent fightback by A & T as they tore into the other teams, winning five of their eight races to overhaul Tameside and finish 1 point behind the leaders Sheffield, after 24 heats. Bury defeated Hull in a race-off after both teams had tied on 36 points, and the Humbersiders can consider themselves extremely unlucky to be excluded at this stage after a number of dubious decisions went in favour of Bury.

Heckmondwike and Hull were the two eliminated teams, as the top four teams contested the last four heats. Amazingly Sheffield were allowed to put top scoring 'reserve' Jono Birks in the bottom scorers race, and he duly won that from grid 1. Burchardt and Zareba won the next two races for A & T to put them level on points with Sheffield going into the last race, with Tameside and Bury out of contention. The scores going into the last heat were: A & T 53 Sheffield 53 Tameside 47 Bury 42, with the line-up, from the inside, being Chris Finnigan (A & T), Chris Eaton (Tameside), Ben Scranage (Bury), Chris Turner (Sheffield). It quickly became apparent that Eaton and Scranage were hell bent on stopping Finnigan and A & T from winning. Three times Eaton moved at the start in an attempt to get away first, before referee Alan Farrell finally excluded him, amongst much barracking from the crowd and the pits, with Eaton still arguing against the decision. In another run Scranage brought down Finnigan on the first bend to enable Turner to get through from grid 4. The race finally got underway at the fifth attempt, with Scranage cutting across Finnigan on the 1st bend and tangling with him, enabling Turner to get through. Turner got away, with Finnigan chasing hard and Scranage close behind. On the 3rd bend of the 2nd lap, Scranage dived hard under Finnigan, sending him sprawling, with both riders falling. Referee excluded Scranage, but didn’t stop the race, enabling Turner to complete the last two laps unopposed and secure victory for Sheffield at the expense of Astley & Tyldesley. There was uproar in the pits as A & T's riders and officials remonstrated with the referee, but to no avail. Another disgraceful decision that saw A & T maintain their record of never having won an official senior team trophy.

The referee had a major bearing on the outcome of this match, making what A & T officials considered to be ten bad decisions, the majority of which went in favour of Bury and Tameside. A & T's magnificent fightback went unrewarded again, with Finnigan, Zareba and Burchardt all in magnificent form. Credit must go to the Sheffield team manager Pat Cain, for his clever use of reserve Jono Birks during the second half of the match. At half time they looked out of contention, but the introduction of Birks swung the match Sheffield's way, as Tameside fell apart in the latter stages, not helped by apparent machine problems for Stephen Ward.

Northern Cup result.

Sheffield 57 Astley & Tyldesley MWC 53 Tameside 47 Bury 42 Hull 36 Heckmondwike 33.

Sheffield: Chris Turner 18, Jono Birks 18, Martin Gamble 10, Peter Pearson 7, Martin Cain 4.

A & T: Remi Burchardt 16, Damian Zareba 16, Chris Finnigan 14, Damien Hack 6, Warren Mee 1.

Tameside: Stephen Ward 13, Chris Eaton 12, Danny White 12, Brian Eaton 6, Alan Taylor 4.

Bury: Ben Scranage 11, Fred Rothwell 11, Paul Dyson 11, Scott Jarman 7, Mikey Hewitson 2.

Hull: Darren Spencer 12, Chris Cooke 10, Andy Angel 8, Chris Woodward 6.

Heckmondwike: James Carter 13, Darren Kent 10, Richard Westcott 6, James Lovell 4.