Firstly, let me apologise for falling behind in my match reports. This post should catch up with all four unreported matches. This match was the final Penrith league match of the season. Penrith B had a chance of winning the league but only if they could beat Maryport A by 5 games to 0. As if that wasn’t a tall order, when Gary Sharkey informed me that he could get only 4 players, it became an impossible task. To make it absolutely beyond doubt, Gary called me that morning to ask for a 3 board match. Greg Millar had to withdraw because a relative of his had just passed away. As it happened, we didn’t win the match but we did get a very respectable draw. Alice won on board one, against Roger Hart. Michael eventually lost to Matthew Haworth and Nathan did well to draw his game against Gary Sharkey. So, no league trophy this year but as you can see from the final table below, a very good season for our B team and our C team even managed to avoid the wooden spoon!
There were a few changes in the lineup for both teams. In this, the return match, Lancaster came to Penrith, more specifically, the Beacon Social just 5 minutes walk from the train station. The most notable change was that it was Lancaster’s turn to default, not one but two boards. Lancaster were also missing their strongest player from round 1, young Max Fyson. So our task didn’t look quite as impossible as it once seemed.
It wasn’t too long before the results started to come in. Richard, on board 6, won against a very young Luca Holt (playing his first ever rated game). Dave Siddall, who was unavailable for the first round, took full advantage of an opening mistake by Richard Walsh and won convincingly. I drew my game with David Littler, who played well above his rating, on board 4. Alice’s position looked a little shakey against Danny McMenamin, on board 1 but Alice, being Alice managed to turn the tables to put the result of this match beyond doubt. Greg then won his game against Jonathan Verden. Jonathan usually plays Dave H but because Lancaster defaulted on two boards, I had to drop two members of our team but as it happened, Dave and Mike had a club championship game that was overdue, so they played that instead. Cameron didn’t finish work soon enough to get to the match on time so I warned his opponent, Paul Jackson, that he would be a little late. When he did arrive, he was nearly half an hour behind on the clock. If he could win this, the final game of the match, Cameron would have won the Coma Cup for Penrith but, by now in a rook and pawns endgame, his position looked lost to me. Somehow, Cameron managed to hold out for a draw, winning the match 7 – 1.
So, we managed to do the seamingly impossible and reversed the damage done at Lancaster. This years Coma Cup was a draw at 8 – 8.
That’s this season’s matches all finished and accounted for. we didn’t win the League this year but our B team were very close, finishing in second place behind Maryport A. We didn’t win the Whitaker or the Eden Trophies but looking on the bright side, that’s a lot less engraving and polishing