It’s been a very successful week for the club as we secured two more trophies as the NSDCA season comes to a climax.
On Tuesday, the league division two trophy was up for grabs and destined for our Trophy Cabinet at The Caritas Centre, but it was a straight fight between our own D&F teams, with the F team in control of its destiny. George Bulbeck has had a terrific first term as a captain guiding the Inter team to the U1600 Cup and taking the F team down to the wire. The opening announcements advised that the F team needed to win 3-1 or better to take the title on tie break. This was after welcoming the Division 1 champions (Alsager “A”) who played our C team.
If the F team’s target was not tough enough before the match, then I allowed myself a cheeky smile (being D team captain) as Stafford brought their strongest team of the season to make sure the F team would not have it easy. So much so, that Stafford outrated us by approx 500 pts with a team worthy of 1st division status and it was therefore unsurprising that Stafford won the match and in doing so pipped the F team into 2nd place on the last tie break of head to head scores having finished level on match points, match wins and board points.
Congratulations to the D team who have the daunting task of being our 4th choice in division 1 next season.
Roll on to Friday night, as we took two teams to Cheddleton. The E team came off second best to Cheddleton A in their final division two match, but the cameras were focused on the main event …. The Perry Cup (U1375) Final between our Perry1 team and the hosts from Cheddleton. The team line ups saw Chedd deprived of their top two players leaving them rated 350 pts lower than the semi-final while Steve Ballantyne was able to field a team with all four above 1300 totalling 5379 – some 700 pts above our opponents.
First blood went to us on board 4 as Keith Dudeney found himself faced with a huge Knight fork of Queen and Rook to find he had to sacrifice his rook (with a check) for a pawn to save his own queen. Fortunately for Keith this prized the black’s defences open to threaten a mate in two. Luckily for us, they failed to find the correct defence allowing the mate. Well done Keith 1-0 to us !
I was watching very nervously as Wallace on board 3 seemed to be in a world of hurt facing a passed pawn and appearing to be lost. Again fortune favoured us when his opponent misplayed the position allowing Wallace to collect the killer pawn. They managed to “queen a pawn” before Wallace, but this allowed the b pawn to get to the 7th supported by the King, and with an advanced a pawn Wallace worked out how to force queens off (after using his b pawn to queen and block checks) and then queen the a pawn while the opposition g & h pawns could only make it half way. Phew 2-0 to us.
Meanwhile on board 1 Mario had played a typically aggressive opening and was positionaly sound until he found his white squared bishop trapped by advancing king-side pawns. Giving up the bishop for two pawns was the best he could muster. However these two pawns became rolling monsters as his opponent failed to stop the threatening advance. Despite having his two rooks attacked by one bishop, Mario found a way to overwhelm the centralised King with his own bishop and solitary rook supported by the two monster pawns. The pressure was too much and with no escape Mario won to make it 3-0.
The final game to finish saw the two captains battle it out. Steve Ballantyne played superbly to completely dominate the board 2 game as he rounded up two pawns in the middle game due to active pieces pushing his opponent into a very passive position. Two pawns became three after an exchange of all pieces as Steve threatened to promote multiple pawns and win convincingly.
The final score 0f 4-0 looks very one sided, and probably not unexpected when looking at the line ups. This clearly does not reflect the reality of the match as Chedd could quite easily have taken at least 2.5 pts. Well done to the Perry team.
This means Steve B has captained his teams to the dream of a Double in league and cup, while also retaining the Perry Trophy. Congratulations to all involved with the Dad’s Army teams and supporting casts !