Starting with the good news, it’s great to report an excellent win for our London League team against Cavendish 1. Wins for Gavin Wall, Mike Healey, Blair Connell and John Burke, together with draws for Caspar Bates, Martin Benjamin, Julien Shepley, John Bass and Richard Thursby added up to a 6½-3½ win against evenly matched opposition. With three matches to go we have a good chance of finishing second in the league.

The Thames Valley A team’s season finished rather anticlimactically. Two visits to Hammersmith both resulted in narrow defeats. Our cup team lost 2½-3½ with wins from Gavin and Raghu along with a draw from Bertie. The following week we lost 3½-4½ in the league. Gavin again won, as did Martin, while Julien, Richard T and Stuart shared the points. Our final match pitted us against Surbiton again. Just as in our previous league and cup encounters we were heavily outgraded, but this time there was no miracle. A win from Mike, along with draws from Julien, Bertie and Eamon, the last two against opponents graded 28 points above them, left us trailing 2½-5½.

Our B team needed at least a draw in their last match at home to Wimbledon B to win Division 3, a return to Division 2 having already been secured. This proved no problem: wins from Seb, Stuart, in his last game for Richmond before moving to Cambridge, Sampson and Omar, along with a draw from Ian, added up to a 4½-1½ victory.

Our C and D teams both met with narrow defeats in their last matches. The C team lost to Ealing C by the odd point, Alex and Barry winning their games and Dan scoring a draw. Richmond D lost to Kingston B by the same score. There were wins for Sampson and Huw, and a draw from Adrian.

Richmond E finally got on the scoresheet in their last match of the season. A win from Barry and a win by default on board 4 gave us a 2-2 draw.