Horsham 4

Horsham 4 again failed to field a full team last night on our visit to Woodpushers. Our intended board 1 pulled out at the very last minute - indeed I only found out by a phone call at 7:45. As we hadn't actually started yet, we had to move everyone else up a board. The Woodpushers captain (Julian Mitchell) would have played on board 3, but then elected to move himself down to board 5, allowing all his other players to get a game.

Horsham 4's fortunes are looking rather better following their home fixture against Lewes 2. Mick Harris on board 5 was on the receiving end of a powerful attack initiated with an exchange sacrifice by visiting team captain Andy Mitchell, while Nick Warren settled for a draw with Matthew Britnell on 3. Then things improved for us. With rather more time remaining than opponent Barry Maufe, Ian Comley on top board declined a draw offer and forced through a piece-winning attack spearheaded by a passed pawn.

Horsham 4 hasn't got its MSL Division 2 account off to the best of starts! Having been shown no mercy by Horsham 3 in our opening match, our trek to Hastings this week was almost as unrewarding. With a number of players unavailable, we only fielded a team of 4. Ian Comley retain some honour for the team, achieving a draw on top board. Alas, Paul Richardson. Mick Harris and myself all fell to our opponents. Hastings 3 4.5 - 0.5 Horsham 4. Hopefully we will have some less challenging opponents as the season progresses.

Julie

In the MSL division 2 both Horsham 3rd and 4th teams had to start the season with a match against each other and even with a large grading difference a win is never guaranteed.

The Horsham 4th team had a great end to the season with their re-arranged final match against Haywards Heath 2 last night. I won’t go into detail about the games as we seriously out graded them on all boards but a 4.5 – 0.5 win gives us the top place in the division.

Thanks to everyone who played for us this year and 2nd division here we come! :O)

It doesn’t make for great reading but the games were much closer than the final score line.

On Tuesday the Horsham 4th team travelled away to East Grinstead and with our full team arriving early we could start straight away and the two remaining EG players arrived just as we started, unfortunately this lead to a mix up on boards 3 & 4 where there players took the wrong seats and as only noticed 10 minutes into the games, we had to carry on.

I’d like to start by thanking John Marshall for his commitment to get to our Worthing match last night, after train delays to his morning commute he was faced by several more delays in the evening but still managed to make the venue just in time. Unfortunately even after knocking out the first 20 moves quickly he was still very much down on time which gave his opponent enough of an edge to take the game away from him.

Melusi’s game was also moving quickly however he had built a very strong attacking position with which he was able to tactically control and win his game, 1 all.

Mark Baldock submitted the following report on the recent Horsham 5 vs Horsham 4 match.

Earlier this week saw the first fixture in Division 3 of the Mid-Sussex League. And what a fixture! A keenly competitive match between Horsham 4 and the new newly promoted Horsham 5. The latter faced an average deficit of 20 grading points on each board and, as the home team, played black on 3 out of 5 boards. But did this didn’t curb the enthusiasm and fighting sprit of the home team? No it didn’t as they ground out 4 very solid draws on Boards 2 to 5 and were just edged out on Board 1 right at the death.

We had a rather strange start to the night with one of the opposition arriving on time with the message that their top board player would be racing over from Brighton to play. Thankfully the other team members arrived at 7.45 and we were able to being on boards 2-5.