8 Crewe Juniors took part and proudly represent Crewe Chess Club today
They were very successful
James Ratcliffe finished 2nd with 5/6 in the U16+U18 section
Jamie and Oskar shared first place with 5.5/6 in the Under 14 section
Jack Patullo joint first with 5.5/6 in the Under 12 section
Arlo Hurst joint first place with 5.5/6 in the under 8+9 Section
Other Crewe players JJ under 14 section, Adam and Dexter under 11 section
Full results for all sections
Hopefully more photos to follow
Crewe held its first all junior tournament at the Caritas Centre on Saturday 20th September
We had 42 players with 2 sections
The Open only had 4 players but it was still a tough fight to decide the final position
The U1300 section was well represented by Alsager Owls, Crewe, Potteries Juniors, Gables Tunstall and Stafford Library.
A big thank you to all that supported the event.
The team trophy went to the Gables
Open Winner Oskar Crewe
Two of the tournament helper Ruby and Emma
Thanks to Andrew Crosby and Saul Marks
Our club has two articles published in the ECF magazine
Crewe Congress 2025
WC Challenge
July 22, 2025
The fourth annual “WC Challenge” match between Wallasey and Crewe was played on Monday 21 July, to round out our 2024/25 season. This unique fixture sees the away team provide a teamsheet and the home team select players to match them.
Following Wallasey’s first victory in the series last year, Crewe’s captain Dave Price was determined to win the enormous trophy back and compiled the biggest team yet. Wallasey captain Alan Kelly and vice-captain Saul Marks managed to rustle up an excellent set of opponents and, after several days of players dropping out on both sides and others subbing in, the teams settled at 32 players apiece. Crewe outgraded Wallasey in the top third of the teamsheet, with the middle third very closely matched, while the bottom third saw Wallasey’s players hold the higher ratings. Incredibly, across 32 boards, the difference in ratings between the sides was just 63 ELO points in Crewe’s favour, with each side outgrading the other on 16 boards each.
A coach was hired and Crewe’s (motley?! – sorry, couldn’t resist!) crew made the journey to Wallasey to wrest back the trophy. On a warm night at the Conservative Club, fortified by an excellent supply of sandwiches and biscuits in the kitchen, as many players as there are squares on a chessboard sat down to do battle.
It was almost 9.00pm before the first results started coming in and, as expected, many of the lower boards were the first to finish. The less expected element is that Crewe won the bottom four boards, despite being outgraded, and raced into a 7-0 lead before Chris Clemenson on board 21 finally got Wallasey off the mark by beating Nathan Fourie.
After his game finished, young Seth Marks took charge of the results entry duties, which was somewhat less than straightforward, as the projector resolution issues have still yet to be resolved.
Wallasey staged something of a fightback, with Steve Simm (board 18), Saul Marks (24) and Tom Whitby (10) all winning, to pull the score back to 9-4. Graham Heath (26) and Phil Owen (5) joined the list of Wallasey winners, while Ken Jones (17), Paul Evans (2) and Phil Davies (3) all contributed draws, but the combined might of club champion Mike Coffey (4) and exciting juniors Joe Ledgerton (6), Thomas Moran (8) and Terrence Jiang (13) failed to register anything among them against very strong opponents. Even Chinenye Basil-Nwachuku (12), who joined Wallasey from Crewe shortly after last year’s fixture, couldn’t stop his former team’s juggernaut (I thought they came in a coach?!) from inching ever closer to victory.
Their excellent start and subsequent gradual accumulation of points had brought the score to 15½-7½. A rare defeat for draw specialist Ian Stent on board 23 against Keith Dudeney took Crewe over the line, securing their third win in four years.
But there was plenty more chess to be played and increasing numbers of spectators clustered around the remaining few boards. Additional wins for Alan Jackson (board 16) and Martin Cockerill (25) were balanced by defeat for Steve Pickles (1) who spent a long time analysing the game with his opponent, Richard Lee, as everyone tidied up around them. Paul Greenway’s game on board 27 was the last to finish, as he finally overcame Phil Wright, after spending much of the second half of the game in time trouble, with Katie Lamb notating for him.
The final score was a convincing 20-12 win for Crewe, which was celebrated. In a typically raucous ceremony, Wallasey captain Alan Kelly, who had presented his opposite number with a bottle of red wine and a large glass on a tray mid-evening, now handed over the trophy and, in keeping with the competition’s name, duly received the traditional toilet roll in return!
Thank you to all the organisers who spent weeks putting this fixture together, the supporters who came to enjoy the spectacle and the volunteers who lugged equipment and furniture, set up boards and tidied up afterwards. As always, it was a great occasion with many a laugh and a wonderful way to end the season. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait till we return in September!
Full match card: https://lms.englishchess.org.uk/lms/fixture/94665
Photo album to follow in due course.
The congress report is now available on our website.
Here you can see the results, as well as pictures and videos from the event.
7 Junior players took part in their first junior rapid play tournament representing Crewe
The event was at the Alsager cricket club with 27 junior players in total from Crewe, Alsager Owls, Potteries juniors and Stafford Library
Chess-Results Server Chess-results.com – Sandbach Music Rapidplay Chess Junior Championship
Our players performed fantastically and could not be separated from the potteries juniors as we were joint team winners. To decide the winner of the team trophy, it was agreed both teams to have a play off with each player only having 5 minutes on the clock.
Freddie-Lee Cooper Scoring an impressive 3/5
Archie Broadhurst achieving a fantastic win with a king and Rook finishing 1.5/5
Mayank Patil Scoring an impressive 3/5
William Hogben Scoring an impressive 3/5
Pradhyun Ranjith Scoring an impressive 3/5
Mark Wright with a fantastic 4/5
Jack Patullo with a fantastic 4/5
I was pleased to be able to field a strong team for this away fixture against Gables V.
The Team battled marvelously
Board 4 fought valiantly to defend his King -but trapped and boxed in on the back row, he was mated by a Knight/Queen combination. He will live-to-fight-another-day!
On board 3 Mal played white with a new opening that saw his opponent forked by an advancing e-pawn with a choice of sacrificing a knight or bishop. Moving his Knight out the way Mal went a piece up, followed by an exchange of Queens, he then promoted a pawn to a Queen and exchanged off his other Rook. A win on board 3 followed.
Tommy played a solid game on board 3 with black pieces, showing a calm maturity after making an illegal move while his King was in check. His opponent gained 2 extra minutes, yet Tommy proceeded to out play and beat his opponent with an ease that reflects his ability to play well under pressure.
That left Nathan on board 1 with the longest game of the evening. After a strong opening as white, his opponent was under pressure. Through a middle game of exchanges. The game was drawn out into a Rook ending with 1 Rook each and Nathan having a passed pawn advantage. It may have swung either way, however Nathans expertise and calm play with only half of his opponent time left on the clock, he managed a check followed by capture of the final Rook. Nathan’s win rounded off the evening.
With wins from Nathan, Tommy and myself Crewe U-Team won the battle and now sit comfortably top of the new U1300 division.
Well done Team – thank you for all your support and contribution to a fun outing.
Mal Green.
A big congratulations to the 3 junior players who travelled to Staffordshire Junior Chess Championships 2024.
In the U11s Jack Patullo scored an impressive 4/6 and finished joint 3rd and joint Staffordshire champion
Well done Jack
Oskar Jarzynski and Tommy Cooke both played in the U14s
Oskar scored an excellent 5.5/6 and was joint first in the section winning the Staffordshire trophy for the second year in a row.
Tommy scored an impressive 4/6 finishing joint 3rd
Our new junior player Harry Cooke – known as Tommy – played his first external junior congress on Sunday (29th Sept) at Warrington in the Knights section, while friend and club colleague Oskar Jarzynski played in the Monarchs section.
Oskar always performs well in these tournaments and finished in line with his ranking of 8th scoring 3/6.
However Tommy stole the limelight to win 1st prize in his section with a stunning perfect score of 6/6.
Congratulations to Tommy
For the first foray of the fresh league campaign Crewe’s F team found Fenton A formidable foes.
Finlay C, Richard F, George B and myself formed an eager and competitive team but, to an extent, it was a voyage into the unknown, as Fenton’s player roster has undergone some significant changes over recent months.
Fenton Pool Hall is their current venue and the refurbished playing area was conducive to some friendly but competitive chess as the first photo from the evening below illustrates.
To cut to the chase the match ended a 2-2 draw but that involved many twists and turns along the way with all four games having any possible outcome at various times. In the end Finn on board 3 and myself on 2 won the key games. Finn’s was a very confident and assured performance with an inspired attack just throwing pieces at his opponent until he succumbed.
However I must confess to a certain amount of relief and surprise for correctly navigating an endgame where each colour had just 5 pawns left on the board. Its the sort of position when the chicken in me would normally take the draw but at 2-1 down I didn’t have much option.
Next up is Crewe’s G team who are much stronger, more experienced, higher rated and generally better human beings than us so we haven’t got a chance…
…or have we?????
Watch this space…
…to be continued