Post date: 06-Apr-2011 17:57:00
Though not ourselves vying for the League title, our top two teams' matches played at the club on Monday were inevitably to determine whether Witney 1 or Oxford City 1 would be champions. At the start of play, Witney 1 were a point ahead of City 1, so a win against Cowley 1 would assure them of top spot, but if they only drew and Cowley 2 lost to City 1, the latter would emerge as winners because of their superior score in the matches between them and Witney. So a tense evening was in prospect.
As it turned out, Witney were able to get out their strongest team, with Grandmaster Peter Wells on top board and Dave Hackett (graded 180) on board 6, and powered to a 5.5-0.5 against a Cowley 1 team not at full strength. Rod Nixon was Cowley 1's scorer. In the other match, we underdogs of Cowley 2 finished the season with a very strong performance. Even though we were outgraded on every board and prospects on several boards were not looking at all rosy after an hour's play, we beat City 1 by 4-2, thanks largely to wins on all the top three boards. Witney therefore win the League with 25 match points, three ahead of City 1.
These results put Cowley 2 one point ahead of Cowley 1 on 18 points, but they will still finish ahead of us provided they don't lose their final match against Banbury 1. Whatever the result of that match, our two first division teams will finish comfortably in third and fourth positions, well ahead of Oxford University 1, who finished with 14 points.