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
We started our Cup campaigns this month with two of our four teams in action.
On Wednesday 17th our “Open” team travelled to Newcastle and despite missing several top players we still massively outrated our opponents. It was therefore no surprise that we ran out winners, with 5 wins and a draw from the 6 board match. Successes came from Lee Farrington (bd 1), Harry Gardiner (3), Andrew Raeburn (4), Karl Lockett (5) and David Lambton (6) while skipper Martin Burns settled for a draw. We will face the winner of Alsager vs Fenton in the final.
On Tuesday 30th, we had just one match at the club – our quitest match night of the season so far, as our U1375 team faced Kidsgrove in the Perry Trophy. Unfortunately we were unable to defend the Cup we won last season as the visitors edged the match 3-1 with Mal being our only winner.
The club championships continue to be fiercely contested in all 3 sections. In division 1 Harry Gardiner has been in sparkling form scoring a superb 6.5 out of 7 so far including a win against defending club champion – Carmel Barwick. Cyrus Pereira is making a strong impression in his first year at the club and sits 2nd with 5.5/8. Then there is a gap to 3rd where Martin Burns has 3/7 and Neville Layhe 3/8.
In division 2, Richard Fish is making a determined effort to win promotion and is in the lead with 5.5/6. Youngster Oskar Jarzynski is 2nd with 3.5/6, and then we have Doug, Julian B and Chinenye on 3pts, with Chinenye on 100% so far and likely to make it a two-way fight with Richard for top spot.
Division 3 has the most players with 14 and youngster Jamie Roberts leads the pack with 5.5/7 ahead of Mike Keenan who has a perfect 4/4. Gerald Parton, Pete Kanalos and Tim Weston are all in pursuit on 3 pts each, but will need a slip from the two leaders to have a serious chance of winning this section.
Overall it has been a busy month for the club, with 61 paid up members and several more keen newcomers we have grown massively since moving to the St Mary’s Caritas Centre last June. Hopefully we will continue to attract new members to our friendly club, with facilities any club would be very proud of.
League Division 4 has two more of our teams participating – the G & H.
The Glorious Gees team appears to be galloping to the title after two wins and a draw (against nearest rivals Fenton D) this month. They were given a helping hand in the two home matches as Kidsgrove and Gables B arrived both defaulted a board. In the Kidsgrove match this was decisive as we were outrated slightly on all 3 boards but managed to hold onto draws in each game, which was enough to give us a 2.5-1.5 success. Against Gables B our team was too strong for the junior outfit especially as their top player was missing – so it was a comfortable 4-0 result. The most important match was away at Fenton D on the 23rd, where teams were rated at 5574 for Fenton and 5582 for the Gees as close as we’ve seen in any match under the new 4 digit rating system ! Pawel Stanny had the key win top board, with draws from captain Steve Ballantyne and recent new member Mal Green. After 1o matches the G team are unbeaten with 18 pts holding a 7 pts advantage over the chasing pack who have a game in hand.
The H team on the other hand had a very mixed month, recording their first 4-0 win and their heaviest defeat 3.5-0.5 and another loss at the start of the month. on 2nd January it was a Historic Night for Hs as we fielded our first ever all junior team to play against Gables B – another all junior outfit ! We took this opportunity to give two new members their first ever competitive matches – Finlay Charbonneau and Jack Haspell. James Coney had a good draw against a much higher rated opponent and Andrew Caccamo had our sole success in the narrow defeat 1.5-2.5. On 16th Jan we put out a more experienced team against Fenton (the G team’s closest rivals) and ran out 4-0 winners with wins from Ebube Christian, Kobus Nienaber, Adam Fields and Tim Weston. Our match at Alsager D (on 23rd) was one of 5 matches on the night, and we narrowly avoided a whitwash thanks to Kobus salvaging a draw on board 1.
The contrast between our two teams in this division could not be starker, as the Gs have a very settled team with Steve, Jamie Roberts and Pawel being ever present and Mal now being the other player. The H team have so far employed 16 club members in an effort to make sure all club members get the chance to play in the league !
In League division 2 our C and D teams played 3 matches between them. The C team came unstuck at Holmes Chapel B (Thursday 11th) in a 3-1 reverse where our only win came on board 4 from Ebube Christian, despite us having a good rating advantage. However in the next match against Stafford (on Friday 26th) the fortunes changed with a surprising win against higher rated opponents. Karl Lockett played a captain’s innings here to win on board 1. Meanwhile chairman Dave got a birthday present with another win on board 4, and Julian Hawthorne escaped a lost endgame as his opponent stalemated him in time trouble. final score 2.5-1.5 to the C team, helping our D team in the process as Stafford are potential rivals.
The D team had one match in January, with a top of the table clash against Fenton B. It was a tough match as expected ending in a 2-2 draw with “top and tail” wins for skipper David Lambton and Chinenye. This draw maintained the one point lead at the top of the table over Fenton, with Alsager B chasing the leaders in this tight division. While Stafford currently sit 7th in the table they have 4 games in hand to catch our D team on points and possibly overtake them on board points. David L and George B are jointly leading the div 2 player charts with scores of 6/8.
In League division 3 our E & F teams had 3 matches each in the month. The E team will proably feel a little disappointed with just one win and two defeats. Against Fenton C it was a one sided match with our team having a 900 pts rating advantage, with wins from Joe, Nigel and Richard while George B was held to a draw. We would have had high hopes going into the Alsager (C) match but came home with nothing to show for our efforts despite draws from Nigel and Joe. On the 23rd we hosted the league leaders Gables “A”. It was no surprise we came off second best against a team with the highest rated player (Chris Hankey) in the division and a rising junior star (Dylan Whitney) with a 100% record. Draws from Richard and Adam were good rewards against the likely champions.
The F team continued their trend of “draw masters” with two match draws (away at Alsager C and Cheddleton C) to extend a probable league record of 6 consecutive draws before breaking the habit and cruising to a 4-0 win over Cheddleton D on the 23rd. The F team remain unbeaten this season after 8 matches with 2 wins and 6 draws. It is unlikely the team can catch the leaders, but there could be a possibility if the wheels come off at the Gables.
There was a lovely line from Neville Layhe in response to the captain’s comments on yet another draw after the Cheddleton C match;
“I’m happy that we are on course for winning the prize for being the most average, unadventurous, unambitious, un-glory seeking, friendly team in the league.”
We’ve had our busiest month ever playing 19 matches, with the usual mixed bag of results (9 wins, 4 draws and 6 losses). There’s been plenty of progress in the Club Championship (3 sections), and the addition of more players to the club.
Starting with NSDCA League Division 1 – The “A” team continue to defend the title with a win against nearest challengers (at the time) Fenton “A”. Thanks to captain Martin Burns for the following report:
The champions still on top… and a record for the club
Wednesday 23rd saw the “A” team take a trip to the excellent Longton Snooker Club to play Fenton (at chess, no idea how we would get on at snooker).
it was a night when Crewe Chess Club had 5 teams playing at once, 2 of them against Fenton. Is this a record for our growing club?
Fenton were on great form so I was a bit nervous about this one.
we managed to get there OK, in spite of some disagreements with my sat-nav. like us, Fenton were missing one of their top players, but they still had a strong team out.
Harry is on great form for us at the moment. Not only is he running away with the Club Championship, but the last few games he has played for the “A” team he has knocked over his opponents quickly. This time he was a piece up early on, again, and he got a fast point for us. I had a bit of an advantage in my game against Petru’s anti-sicilian, but I managed to make a mess of it and things petered out to a draw.
I was confident Karl would get at least a draw against Mr Capatina. Karl had the bishop pair, but in a fairly closed postition he was struggling to break through. then his opponent blundered a piece. We had won the match. This left Bart, making a welcome return on top board (he has been spending far too much time in Poland for my liking).His position against Gerald Acey got more and more tense, and when they were both down to last couple of mintues they agreed a draw.
The result means we stay at the top of the league, though Crewe “B” are hot on our heals after a great win at Cheddleton.
thanks all from Martin B
Meanwhile the “B” team continue to punch above their weight. As we had not played since November we had slipped from 2nd in the table down to 5th by the time we travelled to Cheddleton on Friday the 26th. Without top board (Lee Farrington) and the highly rated Cyrus Pereira, we were up against it, but the Bees love a good fight as underdogs. Carmel took on the board 1 challenge with gusto and within an hour had beaten the 2000+ rated opponent. It was a long wait before any more results arrived as David Hulme battled to a draw on board 3. Thanks to David Lambton covering for our absentees he produced a thrilling win on board 4 as he struck first with a knight fork in an open king-side to win an exchange before mopping up enough pawns to secure victory. The final result of 2.5-1.5 for us sent us back up to 2nd in the table with 9pts from 7 matches, behind our defending champions on 11pts from 6 matches.