We had our final Hillingdon Division 3 match against a stronger Harrow C team last Monday evening, which we narrowly lost 1.5 – 2.5:

• Andrew, playing black on Board 1 against a much stronger opponent, resigned in time trouble and in a difficult position.
• Daniil, a newcomer to the club, played white on Board 2 and was able to create a passed pawn on the a file, which he then pushed whilst also advancing his pawns on the kingside. His opponent resigned when forced to exchange the remaining rooks on the board and with his king facing two linked and advancing passed pawns on the g and h file. A good win by Daniil.
• Michael, black on Board 3, had an even queens pawn game against Harrow’s captain. They agreed the draw after move 27 with repetition of moves.
• Jason played white on Board 4 against a new Harrow player, who proved much stronger, and he was checkmated by black’s kingside attack with pawn, rook and knight.

Overall it was a mixed season. We had good early wins against Harrow C and Uxbridge D, and defeated Uxbridge Juniors B twice (although they defaulted a home game against us, when they were unable to field players). We drew with Uxbridge Juniors A in our first match at home and Uxbridge D in our away match in February. The second half of the season was much less successful, when we lost both matches to Harrow D (the eventual Division 3 winners), our away match against Uxbridge Juniors A and our final match on Monday against Harrow C. So we had four wins, two draws and four losses, finishing in the middle of the Division just behind Harrow C on the same number of points, but winning one less game. We didn’t default in any matches, but it proved difficult finding players for later matches when many players became unavailable.

Thanks to everyone who played – Michael Smith (6 times), Alex Lushpa (4 times), Tony Braine (3 times), Andrew Glass (twice), Peter Meltzer (once), Geoff Richards (once), Leo Shtutin (once) and to those who stepped in to help out – Subas Subbaraj (three times), David W, Gabriel Palmer, Paul Johnson, Kayden Tan, Neville Rowden, Ibrahim Akak, Giancarlo Ciraci, Daniil Donskikh and Jason Neish.

I’m stepping down as Ealing C captain as I’ve been finding it too much recently. Jason has kindly agreed to take over as the captain and I wish him all the best for next season. I’ll still be happy to play if I’m needed.

David Housego, Hillingdon C team captain.