The omens were not good. Firstly, our opponents had decided to play in the south of their large county, condemning us to a long journey down the M6, which was its usual chaos on a Saturday. Secondly, many of our higher graded players were unavailable. Thirdly, two of our players fell ill and had to pull out the day before the match.Fortunately, we managed to find some late substitutes, but when team lists were exchanged the night before the match, it was pretty clear what the result would be. Staffordshire outgraded us by an average of 30 points a board. So, a 12 – 4 defeat was not quite the bad result it appears at first sight.

 Congestion on the M6 as usual led to 6 players arriving late, a couple of which failed to hold difficult endings in time trouble, but that’s what home advantage is all about. The venue, a Community Centre in Bushbury, was large with lots of natural light, good facilities and a free car park, but was a bit cold. Our hosts had kindly provided a very welcome spread of food and drink, and laid on a separate analysis room, of which much use was made.

As I walked round after 40 minutes play, I was relieved to see that everyone had arrived, settled down and were in better positions than me (although given I made a mistake at move 5 and that after nearly an hour on the clock, I then reached only move 9 and was already losing, that wasn’t saying a lot). Shortly afterwards, Jim Nicholson agreed his customary draw, defying a 36 point grading gap to get us on the scoreboard. David Hulmes held their captain, and Mick Connor also surmounted a 36 point grade gap, with black, before Jon Lonsdale succumbed. John Wordsworth held on as black before I finally resigned, to find that Alan Beresford had also secured a creditable draw.  Ghassan El Gehani had our only real winning chances, but his opponent held, and the match slipped away as Ray Sumner just failed to survive a near 50 point grading gap. Dave Newell managed to hold, as black, again over 30 points down, but Ian Lamb went astray in time trouble after a good fight against an experienced, much higher graded opponent.

 This left us 4 down with 5 to play, but as we were losing most of those, it gave no hope. After long defensive efforts in inferior endgames, Stephen Pickles, Harry Lamb and Richard Beach on top board all lost.This left the two most interesting games. Ali Jaunooby had sacrificed a rook to get two passed pawns on the queenside, and appeared at various stages to be losing and then winning before drawing a rook and pawn endgame in the final ten minutes.David Connolly, rueing the 20 minutes lost on the M6, black against an opponent 50 points higher, was trying to hold a difficult rook and pawn ending a pawn down. Both sides queened a pawn, but as the flags began to hover, David swapped queens and was then in a lost pawn ending. A valiant effort, with the experienced gained hopefully leading to further improvements in David’s game, which should be useful for the U150 team who meet Notts on 15 November at Leek.The Open team are at home to Shropshire on 24 January, when we hope to have better luck with player availability, and less strong opponents, before the tricky trip to play Warks on 28 February.

 Thanks as always to everyone who played, particularly the car drivers, and to Dave Pardoe for organising the team selection.

 Thanks, Mick Norris.