In our penultimate match we turned up at the University to play their B team. Imagine our surprise when the top 3 players were identical to the top three in the University A side we had played the week before. Especially as on this night, Warwick Uni A were supposed to be playing away against Nuneaton. Hmm, suspicious - unless 4 even stronger players had been rounded up (quite possible given the strength in depth at the University's disposal) to play for the A team. As to the match, Bruce went down spectacularly and very quickly against Arya Cont on Board 1, and Ben went down much more slowly on Board 4. Mike's game against Tom Brown was very interesting and he very nearly crashed through with a winning attack, but had to settle for perpetual. I was in desperate straits against Damirali Magzumov - who had already beaten me earlier in the season - but thanks to sheer bloody-mindedness, a couple of good moves by me and some missed opportunities for my opponent, I somehow held on for a draw. So 1-3 on the night, but what would the League make of the composition of the University B team? Well, since the University A team did not show up at Nuneaton that night, the answer was not very much. Fortunately, though, there was no need to get into any row over whether this default and transfer of players to a lower team was within the rules (still don't know the answer to that!), as there was a more simple rule transgression with the University Board 1, and captain, being ineligible to play for the B team. So his result, and that on all boards below, were scored as 1-0 to us! Which is how we won 4-0 without winning a single game. The ruling didn't help anybody get back their lost grading points, but it did give us 2 match points in our quest for second place.
And then to cap it all, this week's home match against University A was also reduced to a non-event when our opponents were unable to raise a team at all - despite finding 15 players to play in 4 other teams fielded that night, all of whom were eligible to play in their A team! This is, of course, all highly unsatisfactory from a competitive perspective, as random defaults by the League's strongest side play havoc with the integrity of the final table, which shows us to have finished in second place, within 1 point of Warwick University A, even though they were clearly miles better than us. I expect a discussion on this at the League AGM, though I'm pretty sure we've been down this road before.
So 8-0 to Kenilworth, with not a win for us to be seen anywhere!
In keeping with the bizarre events of the last two matches, I couldn't think of a more appropriate piece of music than this!
One more match remains in our Coventry League season, as we face Coventry A in the final of the KO Cup next Tuesday. I am pretty confident that they will at least show up for this, as they have - yet again, and for unspecified reasons - been given home advantage.
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