Last week’s match reports are a bit later than usual due to our Newscaster been away at the Blackpool Congress with a number of our members. Three matches to report on include the “A” team away at Macclesfield last Monday, with the “B” team at home to Meir A on Wednesday and the F team away at Stafford.
The “A” team suffered its first defeat of the season at the hands of Macclesfield. The captain shoulders the responsibility for this after shuffling the board order to try and be clever which backfired spectacularly as the opposition noted. The first result saw a win for Macc on board 4 going with grade advantage, before Doug Barnett romped to a storming win on bd 5 to level matters. David Hulme (the guilty captain) was outplayed on bd 2 by Geoff Laurence as David battled in vain to survive the incoming tide, playing over 50% of the game with under 5 minutes left on his clock before duly falling. The shock news then came when Macc won on bd 3, where David had given white to our higher grade player only to fall for a back-rank mate and condemn the As to defeat. Bart Fajfer battled to the very end to pick up a consolation win on top board to finish the match 3-2 to the hosts. The A team remain top of division 2, but have played 3 more games than Cheddleton B who are 4 points behind, and Macc have a game in hand just 2 pts behind with a similar board count.
On Wednesday the brilliant Bees took themselves to the brink of retaining the division 3 title, with a superb team effort. As with the “A” team the first result went to the opposition on board 1, before Neville Layhe got us on the scoreboard with a solid draw on bd 2. It was left to the engine room of the team on boards 3 and 4 where Chris Rhodes and Simon Layhe underlined the strength in depth of the Bees as they swarmed to success on both boards to complete a match win by the narrow margin of 2.5-1.5, to ensure this division will be won by one of the two Crewe teams (B or C). The Bees just need a draw from their final match to be certain of retaining the title, while the C team would need to win both of their remaining matches by big scores (and the Bees to lose) to overtake the Bees on board scores.
The F team match is covered by a separate report from captain Nigel Gardner.