Super cool B team captain, John-Paul, finally decided at 8:45am on the morning of January 3 that he ought to get round to selecting a side for that evening's away fixture at Chorlton. Several players, who had assumed they'd been dropped having not had the skipper's call earlier, responded positively and thus the side arrived in good time for the 2017 opener. The home team and most of the visitors understood the extreme conditions at Chorlton and came wearing 8 layers (when the heaters were switched on it still took quarter of an hour for the ice droplets to melt) but super cool J-P chose to buck the trend.
The secretary put the visitors 1 up inside the hour with a quick win. Nick, who'd come prepared for the bar not to be open, made it 2 when he recovered from an almost hopeless position and also the disaster of spending nearly 5 minutes on his clock when he forgot to press it. Phil ground out a win when his opponent, Alan, went wrong and then Denzil declined a draw when his opponent had a forced perpetual. His opponent then decided to vary and thus began a saga…..
Joachim turned round a material deficit and the captain made it 5 with a vicious attack. The secretary looked forward to an early return home – a big mistake!
Denzil's game reached the stage Q + 3 pawns v Q. Both players embarked on long checking sequences aimed at creating some sort of record. Scoresheets were filled and new ones started. Denzil seemed determined not to move his pawns and spectators began to prey for the 50 move rule to kick in. Denzil's pen ran out, his opponent's pencil snapped – or maybe they had less than 5 minutes with the Fischer increments - but certainly there were groans when it was realised that no-one was now counting moves. Suddenly Denzil moved a pawn (oh no!) and nearby pubs emptied.
Spectators took it in turns to have a nap and then, in what seemed like the small hours, Denzil blundered a pawn and, eventually another, and finally, in what might have been the longest game in the league had anyone been counting, had to settle for the draw which had been offered hours earlier!