Looking at the average grades, you would have felt that the promotion race would have been with Andover and Stoneham, but it did not turn out like that! The make up of teams does affect this, with teams like Stoneham and Southampton not having huge differences in strength over the five boards. Whereas team like Andover, Ordnance Survey and University all had a board one quite a few points higher than the other members of the team. This makes the average grade a slightly misleading figure.

Top of page

Andover A

Andover A had the usual strong performances from Stuart Knox and Terry Gray. with both players remaining unbeaten. This certainly made Andover a tough team to play, as both these players played all ten games.  Luckily for the other teams, boards three and four had an indifferent season, scoring below their grades. You get the feeling that if they really wanted to, Andover could win the league and return to Division One. But they are club team, that will only pick players that come along to the club.

This meant that their board five was usually quite a bit weaker that the other four boards, although that said their score on board five was not that bad. In finishing third, Andover A are probably quite happy, they easily survived in division two, but do not have to play in division one, where their bottom boards may struggle.

Top of page

Ordnance Survey A

Ordnance Survey A had a bad start to the season losing quite a few matches, they finished with a flourish though and easily avoided the drop to division three. By far and away their best player was Chris Barber, who won 5 of his 9 games. This included wins against Dave Balfour, Martin Buckley and Andy Mills. It was surprising to see Chris with a grade under 150 this season and this meant that I could use Chris in the Under 150 county matches, where he proved a great asset. I don't think he will be available for the under 150 team next season though, but I am sure Dominic will want to use him in the West of England county matches.

T.Pedro is a new player to the league and he played well for the A and B teams, hopefully he will play more matches next season.

Top of page

Passed Pawn B

Passed Pawn B won division two, but asked to not be promoted to division one (this is more fully explained in the summary). On a player level, nobody played 10 games and a number of players were used to fill the gaps. Hopefully players that played 3 games or less will be able to play more games next season, which will help Passed Pawn. That said, there were some fine performances (as you would expect from a team that won the division) from Brian Grant, Stuart Dean and Ian Cary.

Brian Grant probably had the best results of these players and his wins included ones against Dave Holmes and Nick Missoulis, both good players. All in all, you expect Passed Pawn B to be pushing for the title again next season, lets hope they are ready to have two teams in the top division, if they manage to win division two again!

Top of page

Southampton C

Southampton C were unlucky to finish bottom, as they won three matches, which some seasons would see you easily retain your status. The team seemed to have no consistency, with two players playing 9 games, one 6 and everyone else 5 or less. In total 11 players were used, which meant that the strength of the team varied on any given night.

Their most successful player was Richard Perrin, who scored three wins and a draw in his four games against high level opposition, The surprising thing that Southampton C failed to win any of these games, with their three wins coming in games when Richard did not play! Neil Packer and John Wiseman also had excellent season, with John being the only player to beat me in the Southampton season. 

I expect Southampton C to bounce back to Division two next season, especially as they may have a more settled team as they are entering four teams into the league next season, which will enable them to give everyone a game.

Top of page

Stoneham B

We had high hopes to return to division one this season, with what we felt was a team with strength in depth and we also had a new venue (taking away the problems with distraction we had at the Unity club). We started badly, losing some close matches, but thought never mind we will pick up points later on in the season. By the end of the season, we had to draw with Andover A at home and hope that Southampton C lost to University A, to ensure we stayed in division two. Luckily for us, University did win the match and we finished 5th.

Looking back, I still think we were unlucky to lose 5 matches 3 - 2 and we always scored at least 1½ points in every match (and this only once). So for this reason, I think we deserved to stay in the division and hopefully next season will prove more successful Stoneham B's team make up has remained consistent for a number of years and again this season we only used seven players and the five main players played in at least nine of the ten matches. It may be time for a change around, as with the exception of Peter Eales, none of the players had a good season. It was great to see Paul Massey playing again (he also played a couple of games in the Portsmouth league) and hopefully he will be able to play more games next season.

As mentioned individually, it was a very poor season. Peter Eales showed a return to form, chalking up five wins on board four. I drew too many games, but in a couple of games I was very lucky to get the draw, namely against Stephen Le Fevre and Dave Rogers, I was annoyed to miss a win against Stuart Knox in the last game of the season, but this reflected my play during the season. 

But if my season was poor Dave Holmes and Andy Mills were even worse. Andy's play did not bear any resemblance to his normal game, with a blunder of a piece against Stuart Knox being most unusual. This sort of play can knock your confidence and this seemed to be the case with Andy, as when he had a advantageous position against Dave Balfour Andy agreed a draw, when he would normally just chalk up the point. I think that Andy and the rest of the Stoneham players who had a bad season will bounce back next season (I hope!) and maybe we will be pushing for the promotion spot.

Top of page

University A