Lancashire Chess Association

Lancashire's u16 and u12 players were up against some of the top junior counties in the country on Saturday 9th November at Telford. Matters were not helped for the u16 team when the withdrawal of two key players left the team badly weakened and short of one player despite frantic attempts to find replacements.

This placed the u16 team under the cosh from the start and despite the extremely courageous efforts on the bottom boards, we only scored 1 point out of 12 on the last four boards, far too big a disadvantage to hope to overcome. On the top four boards we scored 7½/12. If we could have repeated this on the bottom four boards we would have been in contention with the final runaway winners, Sussex. James Walsh top scored with an excellent 2½/3 on board one.

The u12's played as a team and everyone tried their very best, many losing on time. There was only two points between the four northern teams at the end. However the strength of the southern counties was there for all to see, Sussex completing the double with a tremendous 29½/36 points, followed closely by Kent.

We have a tremendous training programme in prospect and we will certainly close the gap over the next couple of years but this was a reality check of just how far we still have to go. Even some players in the lower half of the Sussex team have played for England! Sam Berry was the u12 player of the day, scoring a fantastic 3/3!

A gallant effort by all the players in the face of great adversity. Many thanks to all the players and parents from all the junior organisers.

Bill O'Rourke (Lancashire u16 Manager)