Steve Westmoreland
‘Who is the Captain?’ asked a stern looking Bernie Hare. Rupert and I glanced at each other. It was a little confusing, as I had taken the team during the NCCU stages, winning the section and organised the day. Especially as Rupert was late to the match.
Guessing this may be a negative, Rupert immediately pointed to me and I rolled my eyes.
‘My opponent has offered a draw, should I take it?’
Pressure and moment of nervousness as I told Barnie it was up to him and then what the score was.
‘Which is the correct answer’ said International Arbiter FM Shaun Press, who was sitting right next to me.
Shaun, a very high level FIDE official and Zonal President for Oceania, was visiting Rupert and had decided to pop along to Sheffield to watch the match.
With Lincolnshire relatively near, we played the match at the Sheffield Chess Centre. Founded by Jonathan Arnott, it is one of the few dedicated centres in Yorkshire, with a huge focus on FIDE events, junior and adult development. Jonathan is always keen to host and stream County games, with the additional bonus that the u1850s have a very strong player base to pull from.
Consequently, we put out a very strong team on paper, with 1800s stretching all the way to board 9. This was when we have lost 6 other players to various other events, such as the Durham congress. There were debuts from Ben Wood (1854), Adamjeet Singh (1853), Jacob Smith (1840) and Steve Crow (1722).
Adamjeet is one of our most impressive juniors, starting at 1740 in September and at the time of writing, at 1915. However, this is almost matched by senior player, Steve Crow. Steve started the season at 1593 and is now at 1735.
Players mixed well and got on well, especially as many play in the Sheffield League. Once again, there was an amazing buffet, that despite numerous assaults just did not seem to go down. A huge thanks to Jonathan and his mum for providing.
In the end it was a comfortable 9.5 to 6.5 win for Yorkshire with 7 draws supplemented by good wins from Adamjeet Singh, Granville Boot, Dave Stephenson, Dave Booth, Peter Catt and Isaac Leafe. Suffolk next on the 14th June at Peterborough. Rupert is taking the team on the day for this one.