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was a brief excursion as we lost a close match away to Hemel. Things looked bleak after we lost on boards 4 and 5 and drew 2 and 6 but Giampiero won an exciting game with only seconds remaining on his clock. Unfortunately, despite getting a won position n the middle game, I was unable to convert it to the full point that would have given us victory on board count.
Phil Maguire
2nd team. The 2nd team started the season with a sequence of close matches, in which three of the first five matches were lost 3 – 2. The team did not win a match until the eighth match at Watford, a crucial win lifting the team off the bottom. This was a trigger for a strong finish to the season with two wins and a draw in the last three matches producing a climb up the table to safety.
In the Sharp Trophy, we produced a fine performance to eliminate Hemel Hempstead, before losing a close encounter at Bishops Stortford.
Steve Rawlings
c) 3rd team. I considered this to be a successful season as we finished third of Division 4 with 13 points from 24. The whole team for matches played well above themselves, particularly Mike Price and Neal Thompson who had very good results. I wish to thank all the players who stepped in at various times from the 4th team and also contributed by giving their best.
We won the Under 125 cup again for the third year in a row by beating St Albans, Bishops Stortford, Royston and finally Hoddesdon 3-2 in the final. Congratulations are in order to all that played.
Len Jones
4th team. Paul Bainger reported that the 4th team had a season of consolidation in Division 6 after their promotion. A run of home games enabled the team to make a good start with four wins out of the first six matches. However, we were not so strong away from home, and a run of six successive defeats saw the team slide down the table, but a timely win against Barnet saw them to safety.
In the Under 100 trophy, we beat Welwyn Hatfield before succumbing to a strong St. Albans team.
e) Hertford & District League. Following on from last year when we won both the league and knockout trophy was always going to be a hard act as the opening event at Welwyn’s new venue proved. In it’s new format the old under 110 trophy was won by Hoddesdon with 10.5 points while Welwyn were 2nd with 10 points and Stevenage 3rd with 8 points from a maximum of 16.
We fared better in our opening league match with a 3-2 away win over Hertford but then disaster struck with a 1-4 away defeat at Bishops Stortford. The new year saw our fortunes revive with a 4-1 away win against Welwyn. Our home game against Hoddesdon was postponed due to the heavy snow so our first home match was against Bishops Stortford who proved that their home result was no fluke when they defeated us 1.5-3.5. A storming 5-0 home win against Hertford and a 3-2 home win against Welwyn left us top of the table but we could still be overhauled especially with Hoddesdon’s win over Welwyn which meant that the league would be between them and us. So first away to Hoddesdon and an excellent 3.5-1.5 win put us in a strong position, however, Hoddesdon were not finished and in our home match a narrow 2-3 loss meant that we had managed to retain the trophy by the narrowest of margins – equal points but one board more!
The other one evening events, The Quickplay and Jamboree which were both hosted by Allenburys were conspicuous failures with the team finishing 4th out of 5 in the Quickplay, although I did manage to win a prize with 3 wins from 4 games in the under 110 category, and 4th out of 6 in the Jamboree despite a 50% record scoring 2.5 points from 5!
In total four second and four third team players supported the six fourth team players who together with Graham Williams from Letchworth made up our 15 representatives. Incidentally three people had a 100% record, Kai Jaeger from two games and Steve Rawlings and Arthur James from one game. The very good result of 75% was achieved by myself from eight games and Paul Bainger and |