As the league season drew to a close, all three Shrewsbury teams finished the campaign with disappointment.
After Shrewsbury B lost two matches in three days, Ian Davies’ C Team missed out on second place and therefore promotion from the third division by the narrowest of margins – half a game point more would have been sufficient to secure promotion, despite a valiant late surge.
Their fate was left out of their hands after they beat Oswestry B 3-1 away from home, with wins for Eric Inglis and Tony Purser followed up by draws from the top two boards of Ian himself and Andrew Lewis. That result meant that a victory for Wellington by the same margin or greater against Shifnal and Telford D would get them promoted – and they managed it by the skin of their teeth, a 3-1 win ensuring the race was won.
However, the season has to be viewed as a good one for the side – finishing third is no mean feat, and it’s rare that a team will pick up 19 points in a division so hotly contested and still not go up.
Shrewsbury A’s clash with Newport A on the Friday, a game anticipated as being a crucial one as Newport looked to win their first top-flight title in some time, was in fact a dead rubber by the time the two sides went head to head – Telepost A’s shock 3-2 defeat to bottom side Shifnal and Telford B meant that Newport were assured of first, with Shrewsbury also having stitched up third place. However, this enabled players from both sides to turn on the style and play some thoroughly entertaining chess without fear of it costing their sides anything.
The first match to finish was the bottom-board battle between Dan Lockett and Danny Griffiths. In a tense, tactical (and earlier near-symmetrical) position, the shuffling of pieces from both players failed to lead to any clear advantage one way or another, and a draw was agreed.
The remaining games took longer to finish. Captain Jamie Hopkins was aiming to maintain his season-long unbeaten league record, but was in for a tough task against Nick Rutter. Indeed, Nick put Jamie’s uncastled King under plenty of pressure with his pieces ominously lined up. Ultimately, it led to several exchanges, and Jamie having a piece in exchange for Nick’s three, connected and unopposed pawns on the Queenside, which proved too much and led to a win for Nick.
On board 4, Ed Goodwin had been drafted in to fill a gap and faced Nathanael Paul. After opting to open up Nathanael’s kingside Ed used up a significant portion of his time in the opening, which ultimately led to his finding himself down to his last minute in a fairly even position, but with Nathanael having around half an hour still left on the clock. At this stage, Nathanael demonstrated exactly how to play when faced with such a scenario: playing an unexpected, attacking move (usually one which is unsound but superficially threatening) thus forcing your opponent to think and ultimately lose on time, which is what happened.
That meant that Shrewsbury’s hopes of a win were extinguished, and the possibility of even a draw was also ruled out when Tom Pym held off Francis Best’s attack on board two. After having sacrificed a Pawn (unsound) and then a Knight (sound) before offering a rook (declined), Francis came very close to winning, but just played the moves in the wrong order at the end, allowing Tom’s King to escape and leave the game clearly over.
The match was completed when a highly entertaining tussle between Gavyn Cooper and David Everington finished drawn in a time scramble, with both players having opportunities throughout.
Shrewsbury A 1-4 Newport A
- J. Hopkins 0-1 N. Rutter
- F. Best 0-1 T. Pym
- D. Everington 0.5-0.5 G. Cooper
- E. Goodwin 0-1 N. Paul
- D. Lockett 0.5-0.5 D. Griffiths
Shrewsbury C 3-1 Oswestry A
- A. Lewis 0.5-0.5 J. Davies
- I. Davies 0.5-0.5 J. Smith
- E. Inglis 1-0 E. Stevenson
- T. Purser 1-0 A. Evans