With the league already won, the final game was was just another match. The only matter of interest was to see if we could avoid losing and therefore finish the season without a loss.
Ben was away on business and Bernard R kindly agreed again to play on board 4 for the B team. Other than that, we fielded the team that has pretty much been the norm since September.
Bernard won fairly quickly against Abbie Stevens. A temporary knight sacrifice saw him reach an ending with two extra pawns. So far so good.
Phil didn't have a good game against Kevin Bowman and lost a piece during the middle game. Faced with the prospect of losing further material, Phil resigned.
Dave was playing Andy Johnson in a fairly sharp game. Having sacrificed a pawn to open up some lines against the black position, Andy faltered in the middle game allowing back to give back the pawn and reach an level ending. However, when Andy exchanged off minor pieces to get into a Queen and rooks ending, black stood very slightly better. Andy offered a draw and Dave had to decide if to play on or agree and hope that Mike could draw his game against Steve Willetts. Mike's position didn't look too bad and so Dave took the captain's decision to agree the draw and see what happened.
Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there! Steve, just had a lot more time than Mike and managed to win his ending leaving the B team with only one and a half points on the night.
A disappointing end for the team as it had done so well over the course of a long season. We have used just four regular players and two exemplary guest player, Joshua and Bernard, finishing four points clear of Banbury B.
Next season, it will probably be all change as new grades and players may distribute the squad around the B and C teams.
Everyone deserves a rest except for Dave who has to go back to Captaincy school.
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