Chess WITH THE KNIGHT
LET’S start with a round up of the Northumbria league season. With almost all of the matches played and all of the promotion and relegation positions decided there is much to comment on.
As recorded previously, the league has expanded over the past two years as clubs have gained members and fielded additional teams. This can, and does, lead to some apparently erratic results. Players new to the demands of league chess tend to struggle initially, and improve as the season progresses.
Starting with Division One, Gosforth Empire bounced back to emphatically regain the title of league champions by a five-point margin, with an average match score very close to 4-1. That is a big difference.
What happened to the expected challengers? Forest Hall Admirals, last year’s champions, were a bit disappointed to finish a distant second. Durham had problems fielding their best team, especially away from home, and finished third. If they had they managed to play their best team regularly they would have almost certainly done better. Newly promoted Forest Hall Brigadiers exceeded all expectations and finished a creditable fourth.
Looking at the results of individual players there is an obvious and brilliant impact made by young members of the top teams. Gosforth Empire regularly fielded two teenagers, Joseph Dalton 5.5/6 , and James Moreby 6.5/8, Forest Hall Admirals had Zheming Zhang 6.5/9 and 10-year-old Yichen Han 4/8, Forest Hall Brigadeers had teenagers John Wall 5.5/6 and Mark Broughton 4/6. With the surge of interest in school based chess there is every chance that more promising juniors will emerge in the next few years and I think that there is a good opportunity for clubs to get involved in this development.
At the bottom of the league, Tynedale Tans and Gosforth Salters will be relegated. Tynedale are an excellent club based in Corbridge but were rocked at the start of the season by their best two players moving out of the area. Very competent board 3 and 4 players suddenly found themselves playing on boards 1 and 2 against very much stronger opposition. The games can be close but the results on paper can look really bad. All credit to them for honouring every match and defaulting no boards. Gosforth Salters will go down too, but Gosforth Regents will be promoted as Division 2 champions, so Gosforth will again be represented by two teams in Division 1 next season.
It will be interesting to see how many of the league-winning Gosforth Regents team actually play in the First Division next season. Will they opt to play in the Second Division as the Salters or take up the challenge of taking on the First Division Clubs? Morpeth B had a good season finishing second. They have a good solid team with several players with a lot of First Division experience. At the bottom, Gateshead are relegated along with Alnwick. More about Gateshead later, but Alnwick actually scored more board wins than four other teams in the Division and would have been a safe mid-table side, had they not found ways of losing a lot of matches 2-3. I expect them to rebound next season.
The Second Division has been a good competitive league this season with lots of well fought games. With the injection of two strong sides promoted from the Third Division this will be a strong competition when the next season starts in September/October. The Third Division was emphatically won by Gosforth V followed by Leam Lane Bullets. So Gosforth Chess Club completed the treble by winning all three divisions. A fine achievement. The Gosforth V team contains a strong line-up of experienced players who should have little problem in competing in the Second Division in the coming season. Well done to them, and to the club as a whole.
Leam Lane have had some setbacks this year, the sad loss of Bob Forsythe early in the year being the most significant. However, they have managed their depleted resources very well and continue to succeed.
The four Forest Hall teams in this Division had mixed results The E team pipped the D team for third place. The F and G teams finished second last and last. The F team managed to score 19.5 points from 10 games – equivalent to losing every match 3-2, which is a good result for a team that contained a lot of very young juniors.