Mar 272019
 
Having taken the top spot in the last round, Belgrave ‘A’ stayed top of League 1 after a resounding win at Halifax ‘A’. Photo sourced from Adrianoit’s Flickr photo stream.

Readers would be well within their rights to wonder if your editor had been kidnapped by aliens such has been the paucity of updates here in the last five weeks. We are pleased to inform you that we are alive and well but have been busy!

There is so much to catch up on but we’re going to keep our discipline and report on one round of the Calderdale League at a time. In our last post we recorded Hebden Bridge ‘B’s downfall to their ‘A’ team colleagues which enabled Belgrave ‘A’ to hit the front in the League 1 title race, as well as a League 2 update and the results of Round 4 of the Calderdale Individual Championship. So, picking up where we left off, let’s recount the action from Round 10 of League 1 which took place in the week commencing February 11th.

Newly minted League leaders Belgrave ‘A’ faced a potential banana skin in he shape of third placed Halifax ‘A’ away. The top two boards looked fairly evenly matched but on the lower boards Belgrave had strong rating advantages. In the end it was a one-sided affair with the visitors achieving a compelling 1 – 4 victory. John Morgan beat Bill Somerset on board 1 and Tony Slinger and Richard Bowman took full points off Carlos Velosa and Vivienne Webster respectively. The other two games were drawn.

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ continued their sparkling form at home to their ‘C’ team colleagues with a comprehensive 4½ – ½ victory. Andy Leatherbarrow managed to hold a draw against Andrew Clarkson on board 1 (a highly creditable result) but the rest of the team were swept aside. Here is the full match scorecard:

Hebden Bridge ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘C’
A.Clarkson ½ – ½ A.Leatherbarrow (W)
M.Hamer 1 – 0 M.Syrett (W)
P.Cook 1 – 0 N.Bamford (W)
S.Whitehead 1 – 0 P.Gledhill (W)
A.Swales 1 – 0 P.Dickinson (W)
4½ – ½

The other match played on Monday the 11th was between relegation rivals Huddersfield ‘B’ and Belgrave ‘B’. This was a really tight match on paper and it proved to be the case over the board as well. There were draws on boards 1, 2 and 4 and then the sides traded wins on board 3, where Belgrave’s Gordon Farrar beat David Gray, and board 5, where Huddersfield’s captain, Alec Ward beat Les Johnson to save a vital draw for his team. That result left both team locked in a struggle to avoid the second relegation spot.

The last match of the round was played on Wednesday the 13th at the Lindley Liberal Club in Huddersfield where the hosts, Huddersfield ‘A’ entertained Hebden Bridge ‘B’ who were aiming to bounce back from only their second loss of the season in round 9.

In days gone by these two clubs have staged some epic clashes. This time around though the match was something of a damp squib as Huddersfield were under strength and indeed had to forfeit the bottom board. The visitors then built on their hosts generosity with three more wins and a draw to take the match comfortably.

Sam Swain got the ball rolling with a quick win on board 4 against Brendan Briggs and then Dave Shapland took down Steve Westmoreland on board 2 when the Huddersfield man miscalculated a forcing sequence that it turned out would end with him losing his queen or getting check mated. Pete Leonard then made it 0 – 4 when he defeated Amin Hossain.

The last game of the night went on to the end of the evening as Matthew Parsons tried to force a win through against Greg Eagleton. A fascinating endgame struggle ensued where Matthew had three pawns against Greg’s lone bishop. Eagleton was down to vapours on his clock when he finally forced Matthew to concede the only half Hebden gave up in the match. The scorecard is below:

Huddersfield ‘A’ vs. Hebden Bridge ‘B’
G.Eagleton ½ – ½ M.Parsons (W)
S.Westmoreland 0 – 1 D.Shapland (W)
A.Hossain 0 – 1 P.Leonard (W)
B.Briggs 0 – 1 S.Swain (W)
DEFAULT 0 – 1 N.Suttie (W)
½ – 4½

The game viewer at the end of this post below has a number of games from this match in it.

These results left Belgrave ‘A’ top of the League with 17 points, Hebden Bridge ‘B’ in second on 16 and Halifax ‘A’ are in third on 11 points a position they share with Hebden Bridge ‘A’ who after starting the season with a drawn 1 lost 5 record have won all five matches since to reach 50% for the season.

At the bottom Hebden Bridge ‘C’ looked doomed on 3 points. But then it’s a bun fight as Huddersfield ‘B’ have 8 points and Huddersfield ‘A’ and Belgrave ‘B’ both have 7 points. Any of these three teams could join Hebden ‘C’ in the drop to League 2.

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