As noted in part 1 of this month’s news the club continues to grow, and now has 25 junior members amongst the current list shown on the Website. Last week’s Staffordshire junior congress highlighted the great achievements of some of our juniors as reported by chairman Dave.
On Tuesday 25th Richard Lee hosted the 2nd of his popular coaching sessions aimed at our leading players. From all accounts this was a resounding success, but obviously outside the bounds of your writer, who slips down the club’s batting order. It is incredible to note that I was once playing top board for the club and now appear at No. 19 in league rating order.
The Club Championship provides opportunity for all members to compete against each other with 5 divisions and 67 members involved. Harry Gardiner is chasing a hat-trick of being Club Champion and has made another brilliant start to the campaign with 6.5/7. Only a fool would bet against him retaining the trophy.
Division 2 has only seen a small number of games played so far but the strength of the competion has gone up siginifcantly from last season with 5 players rated 1600-1700 and one over 1800. Included in this section is 14 year old Tommy Cooke who is unbeaten in 13 games since 1st July.
Division 3 has seen a lot of activity with Phil Grocott beating all in his path so far with a commanding 5/5, for an event rating of 1752 to date, which is over 400 pts more than his league rating !
Gerald Parton currently leads the Div 4 competition with 3.5/4, but it would be premature to try and predict the eventual winner.
Division 5 has 14 members involved with recent newcomer Barrie Wood running away with 7/8. This section has 12 juniors including our two youngest members -Jasper Ludlow aged just 6 and Arlo Hurst age 7 who played each other last week.
In conclusion November has been another amazing month seeing the membership reach new record numbers. The club played a record number of league matches including one night with 5 home matches and an average attendance of 49 members per night excluding visiting teams and non-playing parents and guardians etc.