End of season review – part 3

It was a bit of a roller-coaster for the ‘C’ team and the ‘D’ team (‘D’ stands for “Development”) struggled as much as had been expected and ended the season on a doughnut.

Peter Rawlings guided his team resolutely as always

The ‘C’ team’s “none-player-Captain”, Pete Rawlings, has kindly provided us with his perspective on the performance of his charges during the season.

Todmorden ‘C’, who finished the season beneath us, were our downfall, beating us 4-0 and 3-2, though we managed to beat their ‘B’ team, winners of the division, once. Huddersfield ‘B’, second in the division, we beat twice, 3½-1½ and 3-2.

This year’s ‘C’ team was notable for being so reliable: they scarcely needed to be reminded of the next fixture. Then they all turned up early and played in a sporting manner. Each one is also a good loser although this quality was not sorely tested as you can see from their results below.

Much intelligent chess was played, along with some effectively dogged stuff, while a calm inscrutable manner and largely well-managed clocks, prevailed on our side of the board.”

As his best game I’ve selected this spirited draw with Nick Sykes which he might well have won on another day. I know that Nick was certainly very concerned about his position for much of this game and felt lucky to escape with the draw.

I have once again selected a draw in order to best demonstrate Josh’s style of play. His Captain waxed lyrically and at length to me about this game after it had finished and so I didn’t feel I could shirk from publishing it. It is indeed very exciting and well calculated.

I’ve selected his win from round 2 of the Calderdale Individual Championship as his best game although he may well have played several others. I only have a limited base to chose from. In this game he plays nicely against his higher graded opponent and capitalises brutally on a terrible error to put the game away.

In this game he defeated a higher rated player in the form of Ray Cully from Halifax and thereby helped the ‘B’ team gain a valuable and much needed drawn fixture.

Pete provided glimpses of his historical strength on several occasions during the season and I’ve selected this utter rout of Huddersfield’s dependable Stuart Oliver as his best of the year.

Thanks to all those who contributed content to this post. Please do feedback your comments on the performances of the two teams and their players as all of this will help us to pick the teams for next season.