Southampton C

After being relegated from Division Two, it has only taken one year for Southampton C to return. As is normal for Southampton C, a large amount of players were used,  with only two players playing more than 4 games. This is probably due to Southampton only fielding 3 teams this season, so this ensured that most players who wanted to play, did get a game.

Still, 13 players playing for the C team does seem excessive!. Maybe if a Captain was forthcoming for a D team, then Southampton players would get more league games, as they certainly have the players for four teams.

Good performances were see by Southampton club stalwart, Peter Marshall who found Division Three chess enjoyable with his 7 points from 8 games. The other performances that stood out were P.Chamberlain's four wins from four games and Alec Samuels two wins, from his two games.

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Passed Pawn B

Passed Pawn have persuaded a number of Portsmouth League players to play in the Southampton League, which is a welcome influx of new players. This also enabled them to challenge for the title, after only being promoted from Division Four last season.

Passed Pawn had a very evenly spread team and only one player scored less than 50% in the season. A number of players performed in excess of the grade and Ken Retallack, Mick Garrod, Stephen Le Fevre and M.O'Sullivan all had an excellent season. Along with Division Two's relegated team, Ringwood, Passed Pawn B will be the favourite to be promoted next season.

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University B

Running the University team must be a bit of a nightmare, as soon as you get a regular team together, half the players leave the area when the graduate. For this reason, the University performances seem to  go in a cycle, peaking every four/five years and the slipping back drastically, as key members leave. 

University A won the league in 1998/1999 and then followed a few lean years and the A team is now in Division Two. Both the A and B teams seem to be picking up again, although the A team probably needs a few stronger players to boost its strength. The B team was mostly made up of un-graded players but these produced good performances.  The three players with grades all performed in excess of these grades, and you would except to see them improve next season.

The team mixed up the board order, to ensure that one player did not play all their games on board one. Nevertheless Jeff Foster's played on board one and two for the majority of his games and he probably had the best performance of a University player. His wins included ones against M.Manzouri and Ken Retallack. Other players that had an excellent season were Phil Lawson's, whose performance was 25 points better than his grade and A.Citra, who won both of his games

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Winchester B

Winchester B were able to beat the two team below them, but struggled against the clubs at the top. Again this was a team that used a lot of players, although four players played in the majority of games.

M.Manzouri is a player who has performed well for Winchester in the past, but this year he had a poor season, losing five of his ten games, Peter Miller only played the three games, but his was the best performance by a Winchester player.

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Eastleigh BR B