Andover had their normal strong performance from their top two boards Stuart Knox and Terry Gray, but their star player this season was Harold Shelley. Playing on board four gave Harold an opportunity to score heavily which he did, with 8 wins and only 1 loss from 12 games. His wins included games against Dave Holmes, Paul Johnson and Nikos Missoulis.

M.Bowater also performed well in excess of his grade and I expect to see his grade greatly increase next season. 

Eastleigh Railway B had their normal problem of having a team of players of roughly the same strength. Whereas the majority of teams have a 160+ top board we have a mid 140 player, which makes it tough to get results at the top. The flip side, is the strength in depth with a mid 130 player on board five, normally against a 110 / 120 player. 

So, we know that boards three to five are where we need to score heavily if we are going to win matches. This can be seen from the 2 games we won on the top two boards, compared to the 12 we won on boards three to five. But to challenge we probably needed to score even more heavily than this on the lower boards.

After a good start, we did initially have thoughts of gaining promotion, but in the end had to settle for 4th place, after a poor second half of the season. Nobody particularly performed well but I think we were all pleased that Nick took the brunt of the good opposition on board one, although he was disappointed not to obtain a win, from a few excellent positions.

Ordnance Survey A stalwart Ron Compton was ill during the season, which severely hindered the team selection. Although obtaining a strong player in Laurie Brokenshire, this was not enough to stave off relegation. Chris Barber had an excellent season, winning five games and these wins kept alive Ordnance Survey's hopes for awhile.

But, in the end the opposition proved too strong and Ordnance Survey finished last- If they can hold onto Chris and Laurie, I think they will bounce straight back.

After a bad start, Passed Pawn started to put the results together and in the end finished in third place. They used the most players of any team and were very successful in obtaining Portsmouth League players for matches (Ian Cary, Dave Elliott and K.Eyles). 

Ken Retallack continued his excellent start to the season (he won the Hampshire U125 title) and scored over 80%. Good results were also achieved by Chris Howarth and David Elliott.

Ringwood obtained another strong Bournemouth league player this season in Graham Willets. This gave Ringwood an impressive top two boards and they both played to approximately their grade. After the top tow boards their strength dropped a bit, but Alan Wykes has been graded a lot higher in the past. Pete Donaldson had a good season and was Ringwood's only player to not lose a game.

Although Ringwood were not in danger of being relegated, they will be disappointed to finish 6th and will hope for an improvement next season.