Man with Hat’s reputation is now in tatters, his job is hanging by a thread and his dreams of becoming BBC Sports Personality of the Year lie buried in the Wilmslow quick-sands. On an Autumnal evening at the Royal British Legion, Macclesfield C slumped to their second consecutive defeat of biblical proportions.
The KoolKat and I had been working tirelessly throughout the night to assemble 2 teams for trips to Fenton and Wilmslow respectively. I didn’t actually get up until after I had gone to bed.
Board 2, Man with Hat v Richard. 12 moves in and it’s a howler from MWH. I allow my opponent to step up pressure on the B1 – H7 diagonal whilst indirectly attacking my knight and directly attacking my bishop. Sometimes in chess you can make such a bad move that your opponent thinks you’re an idiot and subconsciously they might make lazy and implicitly weaker moves that give you a microscopic ray of hope. This wasn’t one of those occasions. Somewhat petulantly I play on until Tom arrives from Board 6 to fess up to his loss to Robin. Not being the first to lose means that I can now resign 0-2. Joachim is not far behind, his opponent Kevin has set his stall out and is waiting for Joachim to make an error, which he does. The white pieces fall like a bad turn at Jenga and Kevin puts Joachim out of his misery when he forces the ladies off the board. 0-3 and 3 boards to go. I almost miss this, Pete offers a Rook sacrifice to David B. Nope, I can’t see it and neither can anyone else as the ex- East Cheshire man gleefully snaffles the Rook and a resignation follows 0-4. Our Richard has a good position and is now a pawn up in a Rook and Pawn ending. However, with 7 minutes on the clock and no increments available he offers a draw and Mike readily accepts. Just Marc left and he has now run out of time and ideas against Colin and now his Knight is trapped. 5½ - ½ but no whitewash.
Heavily outgraded on the top 4, there were no individual scores that couldn’t be predicted but collectively a bad day at the office. A break from league chess for the C team and the next match will be a Presidents Cup tie providing a nice, relaxing sojourn in Marple before one fixture at Altrincham and then the Xmas break.
Congratulations to MC Colin and his Wilmslow team for a well-deserved win.
Thanks to all those who answered the call and a special thanks to Richard who played with less than 24 hours notice. I’m off to see my therapist whilst Mrs Hat mutters something like ‘For God’s sake it’s only a game’. She just doesn’t get it, does she?
ALAN IS LONE SPARKLER
Alan C was a lone sparkler in a night of confusion, chaos and carnage.
The Man with Hat is attempting to get 40 winks after his daily toil followed by a quick snack and a shower before heading off for what was always going to be a tricky fixture against East Cheshire. Then at 5.30pm he hears the sickening sound of his telephone and anyone who has captained will tell you they know, at that time, what this means. We are now a player down. An obvious replacement is Francis who is often at the club even when he has no game. His phone rings out and I am subsequently told that it has been lost. At the club we have Alan C who has never played a competitive game. Alan – you’re in, Alan we don’t need you now as Denzil is free, Alan we do need you now Denzil is needed for the Stoke league fixture and so on and on and on and on it went with Alan eventually joining the other 21 players for this double fixture. Man with Hat slumps into his newly elevated position of Board 1 opposite John who is massively out-grading me. I look down the far side of the room and there is Franny, I start to headbutt the palm of my hand a la John Cleese, this isn’t going to end well!
Almost immediately it became apparent that some clocks used in last week’s Stoke fixture had been reset incorrectly giving out increments of 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds. Cue pandemonium before the situation is finally resolved by the Secretary. A huge thank you and an apology from The Hat to the Secretary for still not achieving his NVQ Level 2 in Digital Clock settings. It should also be noted that this didn’t end well for the Secretary as after returning to his board he immediately blundered and resigned instantly.
And finally the chess… Tony was first back in the hutch after struggling with his opponent Geoff’s Owens Defence. He was looking in good shape until I realised he was a piece down. A similar fete awaited Marc who also fell after falling behind in material against Keven. Tom was also a piece down against Tudor and struggled in vain to equalise against the wily Welshman and author of the second best chess blog in the world. Board 5 and this looked better. John A looking for another score to add to his debut ½ from last month appeared to be well on course for at least a whitewash saving ½ until he blundered gifting the full point to his experienced opponent David T. Mr Hat was just happy not to be the first to finish or the second, third, or fourth. My opponent admitted that he had banged out the opening moves fast because he had played them so many times before. Since I was playing this without memory then I’ll take that as a compliment. Well played to John R though for his ruthless win and its now 0-5. Cue the resistance! Alone a man was standing, prepared to die on his sword if necessary. No way was he going to let this be a whitewash. A giant colossus of a man steps from the shadows and with a huge bishop begins to scythe down his opponents pawns. Alan, the last second stand in, in a beautiful game that ebbed and flowed had conquered Jim and secured a win that no-one had anticipated.
No more cheesy firework puns from this blogger – I’ve thrown them on the Pun fire!!
(A trademark shaking of the head and a sigh from Mrs Hat)!
And we’re off!
After months of fevered excitement, of stomach-churning adrenalin rushes, of dreams of glory, of verses of `this is my quest, to follow that star`, Macc C’s season finally gets underway with the visit of Marple. It’s not bonfire night until a week on Sunday and the majority of players took heed with the notable exception of Marc whose very own firework display on Board 6 illuminated the Macclesfield skyline. On the opposite side of the room (Board 1) an equalising point from Paul over PhilCo. I didn’t see exactly what happened as Denzil was taking me through `an idiots guide to setting Digital clocks`. It looked like PhilCo was trying to build a mating net to compensate for being a piece down. It didn’t quite work and the extra move taken by PhilCo in time pressure forgot about the mate that he himself was facing.
Sandwiched in between were 4 draws, Board 5 and John playing his debut game for Macclesfield takes a good ½ from the hugely experienced Mr Doust. Board 4 and our Tony agrees an equally cagey draw with Martin C. Man with the Hat gets spooked by Tony Kays active Queen and takes off the ladies at the cost of undoubling his opponents pawns and with it any hope of winning the game. Board 2 decider and this one went down to the wire. Marple’s Alan is up a Rook and 2 pawns against a Rook and 1. Never easy with the pawns close together and Joachim holds out for the draw.
4 Draws in a 3-3 match draw. It is what it is! exclaims Mr Hat profoundly. Mrs Hat refuses to be drawn and limits herself to a slow shaking of the head. The chess season has indeed begun.