2018/19 Second Team

We now know that we have finished tenth in Division 3, but fortunately there is no relegation as that is now the bottom division bearing in mind that this season the MSL contracted to three divisions from four. I guess our final position sounds disappointing but as the captain I have recalled all of the results and even if you look at the table you can see that we were only heavily beaten once and against all of the top five teams we lost 1.5-3.5, which is not a bad result at all.  However I recall that in many of those games we were even closer than that and we could indeed have won some of them. It is also fair to reflect that we had a weakened team when we started the season, but as time went on we were rejoined by Ian Philipson and have also acquired Carel Bruseker as a new player, so I think we can look forward to next season.  Recruitment of more players is still on our agenda though, as selecting and mobilising a team sometimes proved very difficult. We used a total of ten players through the ten matches, which is not a bad strength in depth, and here are the individual results:-  Ian Archbold – 0/1; Carel Bruseker – 1/4; Artur Mieczkowski – 4/9;  Stephen Perris – 2/7;  Ian Philipson – 2.5/6;  Nathan Ridley – 0/3;  Brian Stockham – 5/10;  Michael Stockham – 4.5/5;  Hugo Ullmann – 0/1;  Benedict Weis – 1/5.  With the exception of Michael on his occasional returns from University, no-one has had a great season but then surely we are about gaining experience in this group and constantly seeking to improve individually.  I know we can do better next season. 

Thursday 18th October        -    Second team away to Haywards Heath 2       Lost  1 1/2 - 3 1/2

Friday 2nd November           -   Second team away to Eastbourne 3                Drew 2 1/2 - 2 1/2

Wednesday 14th November  -    Second team home to Hastings 4                Lost 1 1/2 - 3 1/2

Tuesday 4th December         -    Second team away to East Grinstead            Lost 1 1/2 - 3 1/2

Wednesday 9th January        -    Second team home to Eastbourne 4             Won  3 1/2 - 1 1/2

Thursday 17th January        -    Second team away to Brighton 5                      Lost 2 - 3

Tuesday 5th February        -    Second team away to Woodpushers 2            Lost  1/2 - 4 1/2

Wednesday 13th February    -    Second team home to Horsham 4               won 4 - 1

Wednesday 27th February    -    Second team home to Worthing 4               Lost 1 1/2 - 3 1/2

Wednesday 13th March        -    Second team home to Sussex University   Lost  1 1/2 - 3 1/2