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20/1/09 Nearly, but not quite
Losing 4.5-.5 sounds like a real thrashing, but stand-ins Sellick Davies missed a mate in 3 and Steve Cooper missed a mate in 2 !!!
9/1/09 Alex to the rescue against Shrewsbury
Nick and I quickly fooled the oppositon into a false sense of security by losing. Chris had a good draw and when Gavyn won after outsmarting Francis best in the Scandanavian it was all down to Alex. His opponent seemed to have the advantage, but was short of time. He offered Alex a draw, which he turned down and his opponent blundered and Alex won to give us the draw.
18/12/08
The omens weren't good when Nick rang in sick and I was stand-in captain. For a change, I had an exciting draw on board one and with draws for Athar and Sellick and a loss for Danny, it all came down to Chris Lewis's game, where he appeared to be winning, but the wheels came off in a time scramble.
4/12/08
Athar to the rescue !
Drawing 2-2 against Telepost and down to the last game with Athar Mehmood two pawns down when he managed to engineer a stalemate with both players short on time. Steve Cooper also had an excellent game, agreeing a draw in a very tricky ending where he had a slight edge, but was short on time. Nick had a fine win on board one and I had my usual bore draw on board 2. Alex was in a good position, but fell foul of a tricky trap and was engulfed in a mating net..
20/11/08 A WIN AT LAST !!! Finally, we get off the foot of the table. Newport A chess team received a massive boost in its efforts to pull away from the lower reaches of Shropshire League Division One when the side visited fellow strugglers, Church Stretton A. Newport were indebted to Adams' Grammar School's Alex Taylor, whose strong attacking game proved too much for the experienced Graham Shepherd, and to ever-reliable skipper, Nick Rutter, whose enterprising play forced a victory against top board K. Wakefield, despite a material deficit of two pawns. Tony Holdford's solid draw against Steve Rooney meant the Newport men were assured of at least drawing the match, but when an out-of-form Sellick Davies lost to E.Elwell, overall victory depended on Danny Griffiths' game with John Whitaker. Griffiths had the slightly weaker position, but, after some nail-biting, his opponent's time trouble persuaded him to accept the draw which gave Newport a vital 3-2 victory and moved them away from bottom spot. In Division Two, meanwhile, Newport B recently recorded an excellent 4-1 win against Shrewsbury B, with another victory for the rapidly improving Alex Taylor, this time over Dave Lockett, and for youngster Athar Mehmood over D. Irving. Solid draws from Sellick Davies and Steve Cooper, playing Andrew Lewis and Ivor Salter, respectively, plus a default win on board 5, completed an impressive Newport performance. Following this, it was, perhaps, a surprise that the Newport men should be beaten by a supposedly weaker Shrewsbury C team when it visited Newport's British Legion home venue. Alex Taylor won yet again, this time against Ian Davies, but defeats for Sellick Davies, against E. Inglis, and for young Mark Richards, against the very experienced A. Bliss, meant that draws for Steve Cooper, against impressive newcomer Tommy Cheng, and for captain, Dave Lovegrove, playing Fred Harris, were not enough to prevent a 3-2 reverse for the Newport side 7/11/2008 Another day, another defeat, this time against Telford and Shifnal. We started by winning the top two boards with Nick Rutter beating Trevor Brotheron and I (Tony Holdford) won against John Footner. The other 3 boards were very close games, but Alex Taylor, Danny Griffiths and Athar Mehmood, all slipped up in technical endgames. 23/10/2008 Just when you think things couln't get any worse, it does. I blame myself, losing to Gary White. Nick beat Glynn Pugh on top board and Danny Griffiths won well on board 4, but defeats by me, Alex Taylor and Athar Mehmood left us firmly rooted to the foot of the table. 19/10/2008: Newport B v Church Stretton B thursday 9th Oct
As my match was the last to finish it is difficult to provide anything more than the results
Board 1(B) Alex Taylor (grade 106) beat Steve Rooney (grade ?) an excellent result
2 Sellick Davies (Grade 87) lost to Graham Shepherd (Grade 131) to be expected
3 Athar Mehmood (grade 78) lost to Adrian Thorpe (grade 96) so once again out graded
4 Steve Cooper (grade 76) beat Chris pimm Jones (grade 69)
5 I (grade 75) beat Francis Rooney (grade 45) in a match which appeared to be heading for a draw and which was the decider. This is likely to be the basis of the "B" team for the season Report: Dave Lovegrove 6/10/2008 The glory days of Newport Chess Club's A team, Shropshire Division One champions in 2005-6 and 2006-7, seem to belong to the dim and distant past. After losing, on a permanent basis, one of its former stars, Ryan Palmer, who left for the USA in 2007, and another, Gavyn Cooper, for almost all of last season, owing to his departure for Durham University, it has now seen Tom Pym and Chris Lewis, like Cooper, joining the exodus to take up their places at university this autumn. A severely depleted A team lost its second successive match, when it recently entertained reigning champions, Telepost A, at Newport's British Legion Club. Captain Nick Rutter agreed an early draw with Jamie Hopkins on board one, and he was soon followed by Tony Holdford, who secured a highly creditable draw against the current county champion, Nigel Ferrington, on board two. However, young Athar Mehmood, on board five, found the vastly experienced John Westhead too strong for him on the night, leaving the score standing at 2-1 for the visitors. There were two very exciting games on boards three and four, which could have gone either way, but Richard Bryant eventually wore down Newport's Alex Taylor on board three, and Danny Griffiths' enterprising attack just failed against Keith Tabner on board four. The resulting 4-1 scoreline in favour of Telepost was a little harsh on the Newport men. Newport B, meanwhile, began its 2008-9 campaign in Division Two with a 3-2 loss away to Wellington A, a team relegated from Division One last season and among the promotion favourites this time out. The match began disappointingly with a defeat on board two against Mark Billington for stalwart Sellick Davies. A defeat followed on board five for detutant Richard Szwajkun, who quickly fell behind against the experienced Dele Ogundipe. Athar Mehmood agreed a draw on board three with Neil Sampson, leaving Newport with a 2.5- 0.5 deficit. Alex Taylor, doing battle on board one with a much more highly graded opponent in Toby Neal, looked set to lose at this stage. Steve Cooper's game against Derrick Powell on board four had started well, his King's Indian Defence causing his opponent some consternation, but Cooper allowed his momentum to slip and he had to defend desperately until Powell's unwise sacrifice let him off the hook and gave him a clear advantage. However, with the clock ticking furiously for both players, Cooper and Powell agreed a draw, a decision which the Newport man later regretted, when it turned out that Taylor, surprisingly, won on time on board one. If Cooper had carried on and won, which was distinctly possible, the team would have secured a very creditable draw. As it was, they had to settle for a 3-2 defeat. 28/9/2008: Newport Chess Club got off to a disappointing start to the new season in Shropshire League Division One, when the A team went down 3-2 at its home venue, the British Legion Club in Newport, to Shrewsbury A last Thursday evening. The result was particularly disappointing, in view of the fact that the club was turning out its strongest team, including three of the top eight players in Shropshire - Tom Pym, captain Nick Rutter and Gavyn Cooper. Unfortunately, Cooper was the only victor, wrapping up a comfortable victory over Francis Best on board three. Rutter's long battle with Davisd Everington ended in a draw, his bishop and knight able to make little headway against his vastly experienced opponent's two bishops. Chris Lewis, on board five, could also do no better than draw after three hours spent trying to wear down Norman O'Connor. This meant that Tom Pym's surprise defeat by young Phil Makepeace on board one, along with Tony Holdford's losing battle in an exciting tussle with Peter Kitchen on board 4, produced an unexpected setback for Newport A, who, for most of the rest of the season, will now have to manage without Pym, Cooper and Lewis, who will be away, respectively, at Warwick, Durham and Nottingham universities. A severely depleted A team will thus face a battle in its efforts to achieve a respectable league position - a far cry from the heady days of the 2005-6 and 2006-7 seasons, when Newport were Shropshire champions. Newport Juniors - a team comprising players under the age of eighteen - made its seasonal debut with a home fixture against Shrewsbury Juniors in Division Three. There were fine wins for the very promising Athar Mehmood and Mark Richards on the top two boards, but Huw Davenport and Jamie Allen found Chris Lovejoy and Francis Rooney a little too strong for them on the night, which meant that the failure of a fifth player to turn up cost the Newport lads the match, Shrewsbury Juniors, like their older clubmates, running out 3-2 winners. To cap a dismal start to the season, the B team lost 2-3 away to Wellington. |
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