Oswestry V Priorslee Lions

A bit of a long trek this tie to the newly promoted Oswestry team who were already proving to be no pushovers and with Richard Bryant opting to play for them over Telepost makes them quite a strong outfit and a match for the already established teams in the division.

Well we were running late but when we arrived none of the clocks were running as Andy had gone without his mobile and was unaware of the teamline up. Which may just have aided us a little.

Once again we were without our top board but once again our opponents were a top board player short also in B Whyte who had started the season undefeated. But still the side were quite closely matched up.

After a quick chat with Glyn I had said it made sense with his great record with the white pieces against R Bryant to play on one, this idea did'nt pay off but still resulted in a half point and was the second game on the night to finish. Steve on 3 was playing almost a carbon copy of his previous match this time going down a slightly different ending ,but once again with devasting effect and a quick win 1.5-0.5 was on the record quite quickly. On 5 Gary was winning but decided to make things interesting by blundering a rook, Andy on 4 was also 2 pawns up and winning when he too decided to give his advantage away. I was although not really winning had what I thought was enough of an edge to play for a win if we needed the point. With the 2 other boards going wrong thats exactly what I did and although both my opponent and some of his team mates thinking it was a draw, I thought differently and chalked up the point making 2.5-0.5 on the night and with both remaining games now tipped in favour of the home team looked like we maybe splitting the points , however Andy's opponent although a tough position decided to offer a draw all on lookers were desperate for the yes and finally it came. 3-1 and Gary playing on a rook down. Proved everyone wrong as his opponent was struggling for time and also agreed a draw although a good 30 minutes after the other game finished (Welldone GM White).