We’ve had 4 matches this week. On Wednesday it was Crewe C vs Newcastle C in div 3 and Crewe F vs Newcastle E in div 5, while on Friday it was Newcastle A vs Crewe A in div 1 and Cheddleton F vs Crewe D in division 4.
Nigel has already produced a fantastic account of the F team’s scary match which leaves them with a perfect start to the season after 3 matches.
Meanwhile the C team had a tough encounter with Newcastle’s C team. There were two highlights for us while we suffered a 3-1 reverse. Junior Harry Gardiner got our only win and is far and away the C team’s leading performer having notched up 50% of the team’s board points so far this season. The other highlight for the club was the introduction of new player Sam Throsby making his debut and being the 5th member introduced to league chess by us after just 5 weeks of the new season.
Friday night showed our resources being stretched as 3 of the regular 9 team members of the A&D teams were unavailable. The “A” team were always going to struggle and things were made harder for us when the Newcastle hosts added Thivyaa Rahulan on top board pushing down the rest of their team. Early losses on boards 3 and 5 ruined any chances we might have of gaining some points before Bart Fajfer on bd 1 and Simon Layhe on bd 4 earned good draws. Karl Lockett was last to finish putting up a spirited fight against Alex Richardson (their 189 grade board 2) and was unlucky to lose as we ended beaten 4-1.
Meanwhile down at Cheddleton, Les Hall’s D team picked up a superb win. Draws by Neville Layhe (bd2), Nigel Gardner (bd 3) and Les Hall (bd4) were the solid foundation as Harry Gardiner provided the icing on the cake with the only win to edge the result in our favour 2.5-1.5. The “D” team have made an excellent start to the season with 3 wins from 3 to sit top of the early season division 4 table.