Mission Accomplished!
Daventry A 3 - 1 Solihull A
Yes sportsfans, you saw it here first (or second if you have already checked out the LDCL website) It's official. Daventry will once again be playing Division 1 chess next season. It is now mathematically impossible for us to be relegated after our fine win last night.
Fielding a slightly weakened team, we pulled off a stunning victory against a Solihull side desperate not to finish with the wooden spoon. Solihull bought all their big guns down to our place but we were ready for them!
Andy Foulds was "rested" (actually, his better half wouldn't let him come out to play beause he hadn't put the match date in the diary). This smacks of the whole "Rio Ferdinand v England Squad" debacle and quite frankly, it left Daventry with one worried captain!
My worries were quickly put aside however, when I managed to recruit Andy Johnson into the starting line up. I knew that Andy was up to the job as he's an excellent player in his own right. This was never going to be a case of us losing on board 4 and then trying to play catch up on the other boards.
Despite (as usual) being outgraded on three boards, I am pleased to say that we all performed very well on the night. Especially Andy Johnson who, despite having been swamped with work (for those of you who like music collections, you can see his website here: http://www.visual-vinyl.co.uk/) Andy turned up and bought the goods home with a fine win over a much higher rated opponent.
On board one, Chris Ross continued his rehabilitation from his dreadful loss with a win against a 190 rated player (and Chris had the black pieces!).
I myself was on board three and had an "interesting" game. Well, the end game was definitely interesting as both me and my opponent were playing a bit of cat and mouse with each other in a King and Pawn ending. The end result? No score draw.... Andy's game finished about the same time and that put us 1.5 - 0.5 ahead with just two games left. I had already seen that Chris was up... Up on material, Up on the clock and Up from his chair to the bar (numerous times - the guy has hollow legs).
Board two saw Kevin Bowman throwing pawns up the board as if they were running away from something (must have been his aftershave) before agreeing a draw. This took us to two points in the match and the assurance of at least a draw. Kevin could well have gone on to win his game but took one for the team. A real team player and very much fitting in with our own team ethic. Well done Kev!
Man of the match for me was definitely Andy J who, if he can play consistently, will be a first team starter soon enough. An excellent performance from a top bloke.
So, yet another happy captain! Can we catch Banbury? It really probably is too late now but we are hot on their heels and will do our best.
So, here's the scorecard from the match:
| Daventry A | Solihull A | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ross, Chris (207)  |
1 | - | 0 | Lydiard, Robert (190) |
| 2 | Bowman, Kevin (150) |
0.5 | - | 0.5 | Carpenter, Raymond (165) |
| 3 | Lawson, Timothy (146) |
0.5 | - | 0.5 | Woodford, Michael (154) |
| 4 | Johnson, Andy (129) |
1 | - | 0 | Chillcott, Richard (153) |
| 3 | - | 1 | |||
| Match played on 20 Mar 2013. | |||||
Until next time!
