What a week it’s been so far! Three exciting, hard-fought matches bringing three wins, all by the minimum margin. And, to top it all, our first Surrey silverware for half a century.

First up this week was our Thames Valley D team, visiting Ealing D on Tuesday.

1. Lewis Crook (1482) 0:1 Barry Sutton (1620)
2. Paul Johnson (1464) 0:1 Dan Donohoe (1489)
3. Andy Glass (1382) 1:0 George Dokic (1376)
4. Michael Smith (1273) ½:½ Laurie Catling (1359)
5. Ian Patterson (1242) 0:1 Julian Bedale (1128)
6. Giancarlo Ciraci (-) 1:0 Ken Broadley (1038)

Fine wins there from Julian, against a higher rated opponent, Barry and Dan, plus a draw from Captain Laurie.

Well done to everyone!

We had two matches at the Adelaide on Tuesday.

Our Thames Valley A team were expecting a close match against Ealing A, and so it turned out.

1. Gavin Wall (2281) ½:½ Andrew Harley (2179)
2. Mike Healey (2205) 1:0 John Quinn (2154)
3. Maxim Dunn (2006) 0:1 Martin Smith (-)
4. Andrew Hebron (1958) 1:0 Chris Greenshields (2009)
5. Raghu Kamath (1833) 0:1 Simon Healeas (1878)
6. Maks Gajowniczek (1821) 1:0 Jason Obihara (1776)

With Harley and Quinn on their top two boards I can’t help thinking they should have been playing rugby at Twickenham.

A curious feature of the match was that the black pieces won 5½:½, with only Gavin upholding the privilege of moving first. Congratulations to Mike, Andrew and Maks for scoring the vital wins.

With two matches to go we’re now second in the league, but it’s still very close between ourselves, Surbiton A, Ealing A and Hammersmith A behind runaway leaders Kingston. It’s likely to come down to our match against the Hammers on 9 May, but before that we welcome Surbiton B on 25 April.

Finally, and most importantly, our Surrey Centenary Trophy team entertained South Norwood 2, requiring one point from their last two matches to take the league title.

1. Peter Lalic (2314) 1:0 Ron Harris (1863)
2. Pablo Soriano (1790) 0:1 Mohammad Sameer-Had (1897)
3. Simon Illsley (1786) 0:1 Kaddu Mukasa (1668)
4. Andrii Boiechko (-) ½:½ Ken Chamberlain (1602)
5. Viorel Scobioala (-) 1:0 Barry Miles (1539)
6. George Milligan (1539) 1:0 Les Denford (1268)

Well done to Peter, Viorel and George for scoring the vital wins, and to Andrii for his draw. Most of all, congratulations to Mike for his excellent captaincy.

The last time we won anything in the Surrey League was 50 years ago, when we won the Surrey Trophy. We withdrew from the league for many years, but recently we’ve been using the lower divisions to give extra match experience to some of our newer members. This year, after a good start, we decided to go for promotion, and it worked out rather well! Division 3 (the Ellam Trophy) next season will be a lot harder, though. We have one more match to play, away to Kingston 3 on 17 April. Let’s go for a big win in that one!