Demolition Derby - B team's car crash result against the C team

A week on from their Division 3 win against Ecclesall, Ian's team came up short in the derby match against our C team.

"We now have our own story" said C team captain James Brown, evoking the spirit of a giant-bashing performance by a weak A team away to Chesterfield some years ago. Very few of his young squad will understand the reference.

So, all the hype last week about getting the B team into a promotion spot was dealt a heavy blow last night.  At least they can be consoled by the fact that there are still twelve fixtures left - and only one of those will be against the C team. 

With Tom and Shamil coming into the team on boards 2 and 3, the other players were pushed down a couple of boards finishing with Craig on board 6.  Whilst being out-rated on the top two boards, Ian was maybe expecting wins on the other four boards.

Board 2 was the first to finish.  Tom allowed Geoff to pick up a pawn, then two more, and he resigned when his king and knight were forked.  The score was soon 1-1 when James's dogged resistance on board 4 eventually caved in to Dave Glossop's pressure.

There were some interesting games on the other boards.  On top board, after an early exchange of queens, Edward forced Dave W's king over to a4 where it reached some sort of safety.  There followed a series of exchanges reducing to minor piece and five pawns each.  Edward went on to win, aided by a mis-judged move from Dave.

Board 3 saw Shamil sac a piece for a couple of pawns, but it gave Paul an open h-file and some counterplay.  Paul eventually won on time.

On board 5, Barry was wanting an early finish as he was off to the airport for an early flight the next morning.  Stubbsy must have had wind of this and took the game into the endgame.  Eventually they agreed a draw.  An excellent result for Josh in only his second game for the club.

Also playing his second game for the club, Dale on board 6 took the game to the 77th move before Craig, with only 6 seconds remaining, delivered the coup de grâce.  This was an unusual game in that there had been four pawn promotions, so a total of six queens were used.  You don't see that very often.