Maryport A captain, Gary Sharkey, couldn’t get the venue for the next few Saturdays so asked if we would come through on their club night, Tuesday. I said I would try to raise a team, which I guessed wouldn’t be easy but I did manage to get three willing souls and along with me, we set off to Maryport on a sunny Tuesday evening.
When we arrived, there were already several pairs of club members playing friendly games and on the other side of the room, the match boards were set up waiting for us. We were under no illusion that this was going to be tough.
My game on board 4 was first to finish. My opponent, Tommy Wilson, played the Jobava London Opening. Now, I really must take a look at this opening, because I was stuffed from the word go.
Next came board 3, where Cameron, playing Neil Jones, was doing OK except that his king was on h2 without any pawn cover. Needless to say, that didn’t end well for our man.
Eggert on board 2 against Greg Millar and Nick on board 1 against Roger Hart had barely got out of the opening. Cameron and I watched for a while but I could see no real advantage for anyone on either board so Cameron and I decided to check out the local pub. A couple of pints later, Eggert arrived and revealed that he had lost but that Nick had won.
To be honest, a 1-3 result was as much as we could expect against Maryport A whose team, on paper, was much stronger than ours…except perhaps for board 1. We were hoping to perhaps get a draw, which would have moved the B team up to 3rd in the table but that would probably have only been temporary as Carlisle A play Penrith C this Saturday.
The League table is below with any points gained or lost against Barrow, who have withdrawn from the league, deducted.
