I must be more careful what music I have on in the car before matches in future. Creedence Clearwater Revival is now firmly on the blacklist, as this song proved to be frighteningly accurate on Tuesday night as we made our way to what should have been a close Coventry League match against Nuneaton A.
Several hours later our weary team slunk back to Kenilworth with precisely the same number of points we had left with at 7.00 pm. Yes, we had been rolled over 4-0. Embarrassment hardly begins to describe the evening's events.
I have no idea of the sequence of results, as I was glued to my own game, but it was a tale of uniform disaster. I lost against Phil Briggs on Board 1, despite him playing an opening that even Joshua would find a bit outrageous - anyone for this variation of the Nimzowitsch 1 e4 Nc6 2 Nc3 Nd4? (And the question mark is for the move as well as being a grammar requirement!) We will draw a veil over the rest of the proceedings, except to say that I collapsed around the time control and got well turned over.
Mike went down to the double agent Andrew Paterson on Board 2, for his first loss of the season. He was rather passive out of the opening, and finally went down in a king and pawn ending, though apparently not before missing a golden opportunity to deliver mate in the queen-less middlegame.
Ben seemed to be doing fine against Tony Green on Board 3, but somehow contrived to lose a pawn and went under, but Dave was always in trouble on 4, where Colin Green wheeled out his favourite Closed Sicilian set up and seemingly just rolled Dave off the board.
So a chastening evening, not made any more palatable by the panto rehearsal going on continuously in the next room. I would like put it all down to playing that CCR song on the journey there, but I suspect that some very bad moves by Kenilworth players might have had something to do with it as well.
But at least learn from my mistake and be careful what songs you listen to en route to matches in future. Recommended titles include Victory (Kool and the Gang), Triumph (Wu-Tang Clan - coincidentally also responsible for a song titled Da Mystery of Chessboxin'!) and, for the D team in the Leamington League, Meat Loaf's 2 out of 3 Ain't Bad.
Other titles for the blacklist, meanwhile, are The Last to Die For a Mistake (Bruce Springsteen), Trouble (Little Feat), The Worst Night of my Life (Eddy Arnold) and Loser (Beck).
Win, Lose or Draw by the Allman Brothers Band would seemingly not have any effect either way!
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