Shrewsbury B’s crucial relegation decider against Shifnal and Telford C ended in defeat for Matt Best’s side. Without Ivor Salter, and with both usual substitutes (Francis Rooney and Ian Davies) unavailable, Matt opted to call upon the services of Andrew Lewis and Fred Harris to play on boards 4 and 5.
A win on the night would have ensured survival for the hosts, but things got off to a bad start when top board Mark Smith lost to Richard Szwajkun – playing, remarkably, a 28th game of his league season and picking up his 18th point – after some slight misjudgments led to a lost endgame for Mark.
The next game to finish was on board 5. Fred was facing Brian Malone, and seemed to have a reasonable position with the drawback of an exposed King. In the end, the lack of protection proved fatal, and Brian won, thus leaving Shrewsbury 2-0 down.
However, the comeback was initiated when Andrew secured an excellent victory over Steve Szwajkun on board 4. Some excellent attacking play opened up Steve’s Kingside as well as handing Andrew a comfortable material advantage, and he played out the ending calmly to halve the deficit.
Norman O’Connor appeared to have a good position with a strong attack on board two against Roger Brown, although he had earlier remarked that in his two previous games with Roger, he had got himself into good positions before losing. Indeed, the same happened for a third time, as Roger counterattacked lethally to secure the match for the visitors.
Matt was able to hold his nerve and secure a win on board three in a tricky position against Tim Skidmore, but it was nothing but a mere consolation.
The result leaves Shrewsbury likely to need at least a point from one of their four tricky remaining fixtures in the league to stay up.
Shrewsbury B 2-3 Shifnal and Telford C
- M. Smith 0-1 R. Szwajkun
- N. O’Connor 0-1 R. Brown
- M. Best 1-0 T. Skidmore
- A. Lewis 1-0 S. Szwajkun
- F. Harris 0-1 B. Malone