After a glut of matches in November, the club has a quieter couple of weeks in the run up to Christmas. This week’s schedule included a Wirral League match against Chester E, with both teams on 100%; a North Staffs division 4 match between our D team and Kidsgrove, and our first postponement of the season (Crewe F vs Cheddleton F in div 5).
The Wirral team retained the same line up as the previous match with junior Harry Gardiner making a positive contribution to the squad, and faced a stronger than expected Chester E team. David Hulme won the captains battle of bd 2 for Crewe, before Chester’s namesake was battered into submission by our junior star on bd 5 – Harry to make it 2-0. Dave Price was well placed until leaving his Queen en-pris against Chester’s Joe Nemcek (winner of Crewe’s Intermediate congress). Bart Fajfer on bd 1 came out of a sticky position to emerge triumphant and keep up his 100% record in the Wirral League with a stunning performance rating of 200 to date, to ensure victory for Crewe, before Chester’s grade advantage on bd 3 completed the result with a 3-2 scoreline to us. The next league match is not until February for our table-topping team, but we do face a difficult KO quarter-final next week.
Last night at the Mals Club our D team suffered an unexpected reverse against Kidsgrove. In a close run match, we were narrowly beaten by 2.5-1.5 with Doug Barnett picking up our sole win and Neville Layhe the draw. The D team have slipped down the table since a superb win in their first match and now lie in 6th place in the table, but only 2 pts adrift of the leaders.
The club Rapid-plays are nearing conclusion now with Bart Fajfer assured of the division 1 title with a convincing score of 15.5/17, identical to the 2016 record of Rich Wiltshir.
Division 2 of the Rapid-play could not be closer as 16 y/o Lukasz Michalek seems certain to win the trophy with a score of 11/16,just edging out Nigel Gardner’s effort of 11/17. Les Hall missed a chance to gazump the trophy after two losses left him just of the frame with 8.5/14. With Lukasz and Nigel playing in the Wirral KO next week, the competition has effectively been decided. Well done to Bart & Lukasz.