As Easy As A, B, C!

What an amazing first few days for KCC in the 2021-22 Leamington League, as our A, B and C teams all kicked off their campaigns with identical 3-1 wins, without losing a single game.

The C team, under the leadership of club stalwart, icon, Chairman and all-round legend Bernard R, got the ball rolling last Wednesday by winning an away match against Stratford A. Bernard himself and Phil were victorious with the Black pieces, while Bernard C and Ben made light of the disadvantage of the White pieces by holding the draw!

Then two nights ago, the B team pulled off a terrific win over Banbury A in the club's first home match for 18 months. My informant tells me that Ben produced the game of the night to despatch Paul Rowan, and the evening's other victor, Bernard C, made it a very bad night for the Rowan family by defeating Dan. A bit of history, too, as Jude must surely have become the youngest ever Division 1 top board when drawing an exciting game against Georgs Vikanis. Mike rounded off the match by drawing a long game against Gary Jackson. It seems as though even when IM James doesn't turn out for Banbury, they can always make sure there's a Jackson in the team! Which is rather serendipitous for the purposes of this report, as will become apparent.

So the pressure was on the A team to continue the club's excellent start to the season when we took to the field last night against what was a strong Olton A team, even though familiar face Alan Lloyd was missing from their line-up.  Mike was in action for the second night running, and after his long draw of the previous evening, he notched up a short draw this time round, against the very solid Nick Roberts, an old Warwickshire Select team mate of mine. And then things moved decisively in our favour. Joshua, as usual against Mark Cundy, was being gradually outplayed until Mark's time trouble intervened and Joshua uncorked his inevitable cheapo to win the full point from a clear blue sky. We'll take it! And then Andrew, after sitting out the 2019-20 season, brought home a very convincing win against Olton's board 2 debutant, Bruce Baer. From what I saw this was definitely the classiest game of the evening, and emphasised what a great boost it is to have Andrew back in the team. For much of the evening it looked like I would suffer the ignominy of being the first person in the club to lose a game, but somehow Phil Holt failed to find the win that we both instinctively knew was there, and which his excellent play deserved. And Mr Fritz confirms that it was indeed there - several times!

And not content with winning the match, we also relieved Olton of the Division 1 trophy, finally taking possession of the historic trophy (donated to the League by Phil's dad in 1949 - and first won by Kenilworth Chess and Draughts Club!) that we won in the truncated 2019-20 season.

So, wins for our A, B and C teams, and reference to a couple of Jacksons (though regrettably not 5!) There could only ever be one song to accompany this article. Take it away, Michael!