Fenton rounded off their South Cheshire Shield fixtures with a 4-0 whitewashing of Crewe 'B' last night. It wasn't our usual team lineup though and, in fact, it was difficult to even raise a team on the night. Phil and Lea were both away on holiday so unavailable, Glyn pulled out on the day as he tested positive for Covid, Ray was driving to Wales and Derek Whitehurst and Evan Clark were both unavailable. So we had to juggle our remaining players as best we could. I dropped out so that Petru could play on board 1 and Joshua Mullane and Ian Mullin both made their competitive debuts for the Club on boards 3 and 4. Mycle, on board 2, was the only regular team member playing.
However, it could not have gone better. Petru got an early win on board 1 to put us into the lead, followed by Ian mating his opponent on board 4, to put us 2-0 up. This meant that the match was at least drawn and the Shield guaranteed to be ours. Joshua went into an endgame with a King and 6 pawns against a King, Knight and 4 Pawns. After several Pawn exchanges, Josh was left with a passed Pawn that could not be stopped, putting us 3-0 up. Mycle's game was the last to finish and, after all the pieces had been exchanged, his Pawn advantage in the endgame proved decisive.
So we finished the competition with 5 wins and 1 draw from our 6 matches and an unassailable lead at the top of the table. Congratulations and thanks to everybody who has played in the team over the course of the Summer.
Click here - https://ecflms.org.uk/lms/node/141750 - to view the full result card from last night's match.