Post date: 01-May-2013 09:27:25
Requiring 2 points from their last two games to ensure first place in Division 3, Cowley travelled to bottom team Bicester full of confidence. Despite an early win from Catalan, the team made heavy weather of the fixture and thanks to a good recovery from Bill to win from a knight down the side were fortunate to scrape a draw. This took us to the final game of the season against second placed Didcot who had been breathing down our necks all season. We required just 2 points from this game to secure the title and an early win from Bill – driving through his favourite Stonewall attack – got the team off to another good start. Most of the games looked tight but Jenny played beautifully to win from a complex middle game – a win which gave her 6.5 points from 7 league matches this year – and gave us the required points. In due course John pressed home a win, followed a while later by David. In the meantime Maria agreed a draw with her opponent. After 2 hours play not a single piece had been removed from the board in this game and I think the draw derived mainly from frustration! Andrew battled on on board 1 but had to concede in a lost end-game. So, a 4.5 -1.5 win and we were there comfortably in the end. The match details can be viewed on the OCA site.
Once again John has led his team to victory by example (with 9.5 points from 12 matches), Graham with 7 consecutive wins was outstanding but was away for the latter part of the season. So the team has returned to the 2nd Division after just 1 year, whether it can stay there this time may well depend on how many of the present squad will be available to play next season.