Wednesday 12 March 2008

League Title Up For Grabs

After dropping points against Braunstone and Loughborough recently, the match against Wigston became a must win one for us. So out came the big guns, and all fingers were crossed. Early on, things looked iffy. Graham Sharpe drew quickly with Martin Burrows and Mark Hebden looked to be in trouble when two pawns down having played the Marshall against Alan Byron. Somehow though he got back into it and managed to get a winning position, only to blunder and fortunately escape with a draw. Then Chris Jones drew with Walter Dehnen to leave the match evenly poised. Time scrambles ensued on the remaining two boards which saw Chris Gibson a pawn up against Andy Morley and Dave Bray have two pieces for a rook against Phil Horspool. Chris eventually won on time in a better position but Dave looked to be going backwards until fortunately (for us) Phil allowed his rook to be skewered and it was all over. So a comfortable victory in the end (NOT!). The rematch at the end of April should be interesting indeed!!

board 1 Hebden, Mark Drawn Byron, Alan
board 2 Sharpe, Graham Drawn Burrows, Martin
board 3 Jones, Chris Drawn Dehnen, Walter
board 4 Gibson, Chris 1-0 Morley, Andy
board 5 Bray, Dave 1-0 Horspool, Philboard