A surprisingly busy week saw nearly 30 members attending the club on Wednesday at a time when many clubs are closed for a summer break. It is testament to the club’s success that we have had 10 new visitors to the club over the last 3 weeks and we hope to see you (and many others) again soon.
Our Summer knock-out has had its first major shock as No 1 seed Martin Burns has been beaten by No 5 seed Rick Renegade in Round 2. Martin has had the toughest draw with a 1st round clash that went to an Armageddon play-off against Neville Layhe before proceeding to Round 2 where he was held to a draw before falling to Rick’s Blitz prowess in another play-off. New favourite Harry Gardiner took the scalp of chairman Dave Price in Round 1 to move to the last 16.
We still have two outstanding games from Round 1, while Rick is joined by Julian Hawthorne and Simon Layhe in the quarter-finals with a further five 2nd round games to be completed.
The week ahead will be our final games in the Summer League – The South Cheshire Shield. So far we have used 17 players and hope to allow one or two more to play in the final round of matches this week.
The North Staffs League had a preliminary meeting on 11th July, and will be proposing all teams are 4 boards for the new season starting in October. The number of teams in the league will be known after the league’s AGM on 8th August, but we are hoping to run at least 6 teams, with a couple of teams in each of the three divisions suggested. It is hoped there will be a further division to encourage new players and lower graded players to compete against each other.
Our own club AGM will be held on the last Wednesday in August (as the last two years) on 31st August. The agenda and reports will be sent by email in due course.