Ringwood v Stoneham C 18 Nov 2002

The C team travelled across the Forest to Ringwood, flush with success after their 3-2 win in the opening fixture. However, things were always going to be tough against a team freshly relegated from division 2 and now with Mr Clancy returning on board 1 for Ringwood.

In what is probably one of the best league venues ( the Crown Hotel - comfy chairs, decent beer, etc. ), we began our match all seated at one long table, much the best format in my opinion. This enabled me to keep a close eye on all the matches throughout the evening - invaluable when compiling mental notes for the match report, I find.

All the team began steadily, with no apparent weaknesses by the early middle game stage. John Z on board 1 was doing fine in a declined Morra gambit against Clancy who is a strong player in the 160s. I had opened reasonably on board 2, playing a centre counter with a fair position by the early middle game. Graham on board 3 was doing fine in a QGD until a poisoned pawn was offered to him. I thought that this looked OK but Graham ended up having to exchange queen for rook and was always up against it from there on. Sam came up against their captain, Nick Zachariades, on board 4 and played a Sicilian - a kind-of accelerated dragon. However, Nick developed pressure on Sam's d-pawn and then attacked down the king's side. This was looking very difficult for Sam. Keven on board 5 had a lively game against an unusual opening. I thought he had the edge, giving his opponent two sets of doubled pawns. In spite of vigorous queen attacks by Kev, the opponent doubled his rooks behind his king and marched through Kev's defences, chasing him round the board and eventually neatly checkmating him on d3 ! Bad luck Kev.

So one down by 9:15pm, closely followed by Graham ( the queen loss proving too much ) and Sam ( double-pronged attack too much despite counter threats ). So the match was lost but John and I still fought on. I was in a tricky holding position against a strong centre but still looking OK. John was now under attack as he had a hole in front of his king where bishop had been exchange for knight on f3 with a pawn recapture. Just when I though it was all over, John fought back and nearly checkmated Clancy on the 8th rank. Finally, it was all over. John resigned, shortly followed by my match finishing ... in a win. Goodness knows how, but I seemed to have been fortunate in one of those positions which opens up and plays itself, even though there weren't any obvious blunders by my opponent.

So we lost 1 - 4 but we all made a good fight of it against a strong team who, I imagine, heavily outgraded us on all boards.

David Culliford - Stoneham C Match Captain