Record League Match?

Record League Match?

It was another fabulous night at the club last night. The Crewe E team hosted the Crewe F team in a North Staffs League match. Teams in this league normally comprise 4 players but both Crewe teams fielded an amazing TEN players each. Some of the in experienced members might think that can be the norm but it isn’t, in fact the very experienced members at the club had not seen anything like that for a league match and think it could be a record number, particularly in the North Staffs league. So its thanks to everyone who turned out and took part and a special thanks to the club’s Events Officer for arranging it all.

In relation to the match Board 1 saw the experienced Julian Hawthorn as white take on Lee Farrington playing his first game for Crewe following his move from the London area. After a promising opening for Julian, Lee managed to win a couple of pawns and take the game into a rook and pawn engame which he was able to convert for the full point. This game happened to be the last to finish whilst the first to finish was the board 7 clash where Reinhard Haack beat young Joe Hignett. The games on Board 4 and then Board 2 were next to finish with wins for Steve Ballantyne and Doug Barnett respectively.

On Board 3 the ever improving young Oskar had to play excellently to beat his tough opponent, though to be fair to James he wasn’t feeling 100% after recently being ill. Oskar trapped a knight, then later a bishop before delivering a nice checkmate, so that was another point for the F team. There were also victories for Marek (Osca’rs dad) making a rare appearance for the F team, and for Chris Marais winning for the E team on Boards 9 and 8 respectively.

Pawell Stanny managed another win for the E team in a rook endgame after winning Adam’s doubled isolated pawns. On Board 10 Vicky Kelsall playing black against Peter Kanalos, in her own words mucked up the opening, this then allowed Peter the advantage for the rest of the game which he too managed to convert. The penultimate game to finish was the one on board 6 between Mike Keenan playing white and George Jellis. In a close encounter Mike managed to launch an attack against George’s Queenside castled King culminating in a nice checkmate. This meant the final score of the match was 5-5, ten games had been played and not one draw!

In addition to the incredible League match the club was able to facilitate three internal games in Division 1. Here Martin Burns as white beat Dave Hulme and Karl Lockett as black beat Neville Layhe. The third game saw Jim Grange, playing his first standard playgame game for the club since before the Covid Lockdown, beat Dave Lambton who had black.

Attention now turns to the local congress this weekend where 22 Crewe Chess Club members will be competing in four sections as well as 2 more who will helping. This is a very impresive turnout at a congress from a single club. Good luck to all and hopefully everyone enjoys it.