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If any chess player graded below 100 would like to play
for this County team and lives in Shropshire or plays for a Shropshire
club please contact me, Ian Davies (Captain) on 01743-356923.
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Under 100's Win Semi Final Place Shropshire came back from the dead to win a semi final place in the English national championships for teams of players graded under 100. At one stage the Salopians were 4-1 down in their quarter final encounter against Norfolk, and were looking as if they were about to go 5-1 down. But then a dramatic fightback began which took them to a 6.5-5.5 victory. The match was played at a neutral venue, Barkby in Leicestershire, and Shropshire will now face either Surrey or Lancashire in the semis. "We were two pretty evenly matched teams," said captain Ian Davies. "I played three juniors again. The match started with two draws, and then Norfolk went into a 4-1 lead and all looked lost at that point because on board one George Viszokai looked as if he was going to lose and make it 5-1. But then we started to come back a bit. We got it back to 4.5-3.5, and then they went into a 5.5-3.5 lead which meant we had to win the three remaining games still playing, involving Roger Brown, Alex Taylor and Dele Ogundipe. Alex had a pretty good win, checkmating the Norfolk captain. Dele had a won position, then should have lost, but his opponent missed a check which would have won a rook. She missed that and Dele went on to win. It was now 5.5-5.5 and as you can imagine it was all very tense by this stage. The last game was that of Roger Brown on board two and as usual Roger was in very bad time trouble. I think he had about three minutes left to make about 20 moves. But by that stage he was a piece up. He got very close to his time control, but just about managed to make his 36th move as his flag was about to fall. Fortunately for us, as soon as he reached his time control his opponent resigned, which gave us a 6.5-5.5 victory. We came back from the dead really." Shropshire winners were Roger Brown, Sellick Davies, Dele Ogundipe, Alex Taylor, and, on his debut for the team, Ibiye Roberts. Draws came from Andrew Lewis, Paul Broderick, and Peter Mellor. Toby Neal Shropshire Star 15/05/07 |
Welcome
to another season for the u/100 team; let's hope it is as successful as
the one last season. This season I am running the team as a non-playing
captain due to a rise to my grade. We have also lost 2 of our top 3 from
last season [Andy Tunks and Chris Lewis] due to their grades rising and
also 2 players from Oswestry [Keith and Ieun] . To compensate for this
we have gained some players who have just dropped below 100. My intention this season is to try and get at least one player from every Shropshire club, to give a true representation. This always proves far easier said than done for some reason. Also, Iwould like to play at least 4 junior players and maybe more if they're enthusiastic enough!! .So therefore the team should look very different from the one that won the M.C.C.U. title last time round, and some people will have to miss out. But i think it's only fair to give other people a chance to play for their county.That's if they want to of course! The format is the same as last time ; namely a West Midland zone and an East Midland zone with the winners and runners up of each zone playing off against each other to determine the Midlands champions who then go through to the all-England quarter finals.In our zone there are Staffs A.and Staffs.B and also Worcs.Our first match is against Staffs.A on Oct.14 at Brewood . I will be contacting people in the near future about playing and keeping everyone updated as to how we're doing on the website [kindly done by Keith Tabner] and also by reports in the Shropshire Star and the Shrewsbury Chronicle. Ian Davies. |
| 2005-06
Kent 8 Shropshire 4 13/05/06 We played our quarter-final match against Kent in the all England stage of this years competition on Sat.13th May 2006. The match took place in Bicester in Oxfordshire and many thanks to Bicester chess club for providing the venue and also some refreshments. I was really looking forward to this match, a chance to test ourselves against a team from a strong playing chess part of the country.I felt pretty confident that if we could get our full team out we could match, if not beat them. After all, we are the champions of the whole of the Midlands. Things got off to a very bad start when one of our players failed to materialise, so we had to de-fault that board,and I also allowed their player who was going to miss a game to drop down 2 places and play our board 12, at the request of the Kent captain.Something I shouldn't have perhaps done in retrospect. Ieun Fenton from Oswestry club played a very good game to equal things up. Confidence restored, Dele Ogundipe from Wellington club then had a fine win on board 4 to put us into the the lead. Confidence rising. My confidence rose even further after a quick recce of the situation to find everyone holding their own and even being material up in some games.My own game was going very well,even though I was a pawn down I had by far the better position.We then had a draw followed by a loss. I then did my usual thing of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by missing a simple knight-fork which would have won the exchange and also a bishop,many apologies for being so stupid. A classic case of moving a piece because that is what you had planned no matter what he did.All those hours of preparation gone in an instant!! Kent then went into a 6-3 lead so the last 3 boards all had to win.Our board 1, Roger Brown, was having a very tough time of it and finally succumed late in the day to secure victory for Kent.The 2 remaining boards quickly agreed draws to give Kent a 8-4 win. So congratulations to them. So, wins came from Ieun Fenton and Dele Ogundipe. draws came from Andy Tunks, Chris Lewis,Keith Grice,Sellick Davies. losses came from Roger Brown,Ian Davies,Derrick Powell, Alan Pickles,Henry Graham and one board de-faulted. In conclusion, I think it is fair to say that we have exceeded all our expectations by reaching this stage, and on another day could have gone even further, so well done to all of us, Many thanks to Roger Brown for seeing to our home venue again, also to Keith Tabner for putting everything onto the website and to everyone for giving up their time to play for their county. Who knows what next season will bring,but I think we will lose our top 4, who will go above 100, and perhaps a couple more as well. If my own grade should reach those dizzy hieghts and no one else wants to take over as captain then I would volunteer as a non-playing captain,but we'll wait and see. KEEP PRACTISING. - IAN DAVIES. |
Bizarre
start then it’s a day of glory By
TOBY NEAL 21 March 2006 Shropshire’s under-100 team have covered themselves in glory by becoming Midlands champions despite a hiccup which saw them begin hostilities in the final against Nottinghamshire with three players missing. “It was quite a bizarre start,” said captain Ian Davies. “Our board two player, Andy Tunks , did not turn up. Luckily we managed to get in touch with Alex Taylor from Newport and he agreed to get there — it was played at Staffordshire University in Stafford — as quickly as he could. “We also had two players who were about 45 minutes late because they got lost. Sellick Davies was bringing himself and Chris Lewis. They both had a lot of time to make up and both managed to win. “Nottinghamshire outgraded us. They are quite a good team and had their full strength team out. We were very pleased with the result.” The 7-5 victory means Shropshire are the Midlands Counties Chess Union champions in the section for players graded under 100, which is a B or C team club standard. |
| The team played
Warwickshire on Sat. Feb.4 2006
at Shifnal scout hut in the semi-final of the Midland M.C.C.U zone. We played our final match of the West Mid. section on Jan 14
2006 against Staffs. B at Newcastle-u- Lyme. Many apologies for all the website users for not being able to follow
the progress of your illustrious u/100 chess team, but hopefully that
has now been rectified. |