Broadstairs 3 Folkestone 1
| 1 | Chris Stampe (124) | 1-0 | Alec Nicol (136) |
| 2 | Gary Hilleard (118) | 1-0 | David Erwee (100) |
| 3 | Andy Flood (110) | 0-1 | Andrew Haycock (97) |
| 4 | Michael Doyle (90) | 1-0 | Robert Twigg (77) |
Andy Flood writes:
The match at Folkestone was always going to be tricky, given that last year a stronger team only managed a draw, and so it proved. The exception was Gary Hilleard with the black pieces on Board 2, who quickly overcame his opponent with clever tactics that saw him win a pawn and rook in exchange for a bishop, then dominating his game for an early win and thus retain his remarkable 100% win record for Broadstairs in league chess games. The game on Board 3 was evenly balanced and Mike Doyle on Board 4 had a slight positional advantage which he was developing but Chris Stampe on the top board was soon a pawn and then two pawns down.
As the evening drew to a conclusion, Mike Doyle appeared to be in trouble from a developed dominant position when his opponent broke through onto the 7th rank with his queen and rook. Meanwhile on Board 3 I forced the exchange of queen for two rooks and soon had my own rooks on the 7th rank with the intention of forcing a mate following a sacrifice of a piece. However a slight miscalculation and solid play by my opponent meant that I lost my game and, as last to finish, feared that the team had suffered a 3 -1 defeat.
But no! resolute strong defending by Mike Doyle had fought off the attack and had enabled him to go on and quickly beat his opponent, and Chris Stampe had managed to win on time against his higher graded opponent on the top board. A tricky match indeed but one that was won by Broadstairs 3-1.