Mid Sussex League

Horsham 1 bounced back from their disappointing loss to Hastings 1 to beat a weakened Haywards Heath 1 by a big margin. On the morning of the match, I was rung by the Haywards Heath captain to inform me that Feliks Kwiatkowski was not going to be playing. This meant that their line up was noticably weakened, although we would have been favourites to win in any case.

The first Horsham 1 match of the season was the dreaded away trip to Hastings. I left early (shortly after 4:30pm) to make sure I got there on time, but only just about made it, due to some congestion on the A27. The Horsham 1 was pretty strong, despite a number of people being unavailable. Hastings 1 had a familiar look to it, with several regular fixtures dating back to the Ark (or so it sometimes seems), and only one new face (to me at any rate) on bottom board.

27/10/17 - Updated to include club events and Rapidplay competition

Horsham’s Mid Sussex League season kicked off on Tuesday night with the much awaited 2nd team versus 3rd team clash in Division 2. Both teams fielded strong sides and it was always going to be a close, tense affair. The 2nd team out-graded the 3rd team by an average of 12 points and being the away team had the benefit of three whites, but it was clear that each individual match would be closely fought!

A glance at the website revealed I hadn't posted a report for the final match of the season vs Worthing 2 which confirmed Horsham 1 in second place in Div 1. So here is the scorecard and a puzzle...

Congratulations to Matthew Forster for winning the Knight trophy with a very impressive score of 86% (6 out of 7).

As a club we scored 102 points from 210 games in the MSL leagues and KO which represents 49% .

I have circulated the full results by email but have copied all those with over 50% in the picture. Please remember that those with fewer than 4 games are not eligible for the Knight (hence the shading).

Julie, Anthony and I represented the club at the AGM last night. It was a pleasant evening which was not too contentious. I took home brief notes which I copy below. Julie stood down as fixtures secretary and earnt a round of applause for all her excellent work for the MSL.

Horsham 3 have been confirmed 2nd in the second division - this is a very strong division and does a lot of credit to the players involved.

John got an update from Brian Denman (see below) about the Brighton Crowborough match and its the worst possible result for Horsham 1 and Horsham 2 - a draw. This pushes Horsham 1 to second place, just nudging them out of the top spot once again (our last win was in 2010) and means relegation for Horsham 2 ... a disappointing end to the season.

The 2nd team completed their fixtures with two matches in the space of 4 days. Last Friday we played our re-arranged match away at Crowborough who fielded their strongest team of the season (!) and edged a 3-2 victory.