Weymouth C v Dorchester D

We welcomed Dorchester's "junior" team last evening for an entertaining match, in which Dorchester were heavily outgraded. Mark Potter was cheerleader for the evening and shortly after his arrival the room unexpectedly started filling up with parents and relatives of the players. We have to thank Dorchester for producing such a dedicated team; one lad came from Sherborne and another arrived on his scooter!! The match started with our captain Andre looking concerned because he was using a lot more time than his opponent, who proceeeded to scoot round the board (not on his scooter by the way!). Steve's game on board one seemd to be quite even although Dorchester Steve was a pawn up fairly early on. John's opponent on board 3 (Sherborne) was taking about the same amount of time over his moves as John but John's experience told in the end after a good tussle. Jaden was doing quite well against me until he allowed me a little tactic which meant that after a couple of exchanges I was a piece for a pawn up and with other threats on a long diagonal. Andre's game then finished after he generously tried to let his opponent get a stalemate (he realised just in time!) 2-0 Weymouth. By this time Steve suddenly had a great position on top board and won after a good tussle. My game with Jaden went in to the endgame with me with a rook and four pawns against Jaden's 5 pawns. After gobbling up all of his pawns with my rook I proceeded to have 3 queens on the board....................... and still Jaden soldiered on looking for the stalemate. I finally decdied to checkmate him only because his mum was looking at her watch and it was nearly 10 o'clock!! A good result for Weymouth.........but more importantly ; it was great to see some younger players getting involved and enthusiastic!! Well done Dorchester!!

Thanks for the great comments, Malcolm. We'll take consolation from the fact that the only way is up. Looking forward to a rematch already!