Our glorious M team (yes our 13th team !!) made the trek to Cheddleton on a foul Friday night to play a division 6 match against the host’s D team.
Our team was full of players making their league debuts for the club and all set off in nervous excitement. The team all arrived in advance of the captain (yours truly) as I was delayed by a certain junior dressed in his pyjamas as I knocked on the door at 6.45pm – not a promising start – as the weather was horrible and almost certain to delay our journey.
I was taking our two reserves – Mayank and Andrew C – who were paired up with stronger opponents than planned as Cheddleton’s own team was disrupted by the filthy weather (Storm Austen). As I arrived the match was already underway with our four debutants – Phil Foster, Jo Estridge, James Foster and Thomas Rowland. I could only smile with pride as the team set about their tasks. Thomas was first to finish but played his longest ever game before resigning after about an hour. Young James on board 3 was in the ascendancy with a two major piece advantage, but fell into the common trap of “stale-mating” his opponent. On board 2, Jo’s game was a delight to watch as advantages swung too and fro, from being a piece up out of the opening, then a piece down in the middle game and then creating a great plan to find the check mate. The friendly spirit between the teams was great to watch as the match was heading to a conclusion with the scores level and the last board in play. The game between Phil and Peter Hiscock (father of two of the other Chedd players in their team) was a cracker ! Both players were thinking of offering a draw but decided to play on and it was not until around 10pm that Peter found a superb combination to sac a piece and blow open Phil’s defences to emerge victorious, and give the Cheddleton the narrow victory. (2.5-1.5)
Meanwhile Mayank and Andrew had finished their games, sharing the spoils (one win, one loss). Mayank showed some excellent attacking skills, after developing his pieces much quicker after an early gambit to force and breakthrough against the uncastled King. Well played Mayank !!
A glance at the league tables shows Crewe in “rude health” as we appear top of all league tables currently except for division 6. To be fair this is mainly because our teams have played more matches than most other clubs so far as every one of our 13 teams has played 3 matches already. It is of course far too early in the season to read anything into this.
Finally, just to mention we have our “Congress Crew” playing at the Scarborough Congress this weekend. Hopefully there will be a news item on that in the next few days.
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