Broadstairs 2 Folkestone 2
| 1 | Bob Page (135) | 1-0 | James Smith (96) |
| 2 | Paul Carfrae (133) | 0-1 | David Erwee (96) |
| 3 | Richard Clement (e130) | 1-0 | Benjamin Kiss (95) |
| 4 | Andy Flood (106) | 0-1 | Andrew Haycock (87) |
Bob Page writes:
This was meant the day that Broadstairs celebrated winning the Hargreaves Shield, returning home like Caesar from the wars. Alas, it was something of a horror show that could have been a lot worse but for Richard’s late victory that enabled us to scrape a draw. We arrived with a strong side and had every reason to be confident: we were unbeaten, Folkestone were bottom of the league with four defeats in five. What could possibly go wrong? It all began promisingly: on Board 1 Black lost a pawn then the exchange and soon after the game. 1-0 up at 9.00. However, all was not well elsewhere. Paul was a piece down on Board 2, Richard’s game on Board 3 looked tight and on Board 4 Andy was undeveloped and under pressure. When Paul won his piece back with a typically cunning tactic, things were looking up but soon after he miscalculated in a level position, lost a rook and resigned. By now Richard was a pawn ahead but in a tricky double rook and pawns ending and was falling behind on the clock. Victory in the match now seemed unlikely but defeat was unthinkable so for the next hour Andy was forced to die the death of a thousand cuts until eventually, facing mate, he was forced to resign. We then all gathered nervously around Richard’s game as his clock reached the last fifteen minutes. Fortunately, his opponent (with more time) panicked, swapped off one set of rooks and Richard finished off neatly to seal an inauspicious draw for Broadstairs. As the table below shows, we are still in a strong position and a point against Bridge in our final match will be enough but after this result we are taking nothing for granted.
| Team | Play | Won | Draw | Lost | For | Against | Points | SP | MP | IM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broadstairs | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Margate | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Bridge | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Folkestone | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 17 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |