Just as with the Oriental/East India the week before, this journal found itself unable to send a staff reporter to match, and has once again had to rely upon eye-witness accounts on the night to piece together the action. The Board of Directors can assure readers that matters shall be rectified for the next match, or the editor will be invited to offer his resignation, just as our subscribers would expect.
In the event, this friendly match, a five-boarder, was won 3-2 by the NLC. A nice one to get under our belt.
Board 1
Match Captain Miser Giffin QC MA (Oxon) took on Roehampton’s James Hollands, and won through.
Board 2
Mister Ioannou took on board 2 duties. In an unusual turn of events, his is the only game that was filed with the editors at the point of going to press. A particularly direct victory.
Board 3
Miss Widger, alas, couldn’t continue her run of good form. She took on, and lost to, a man our records simply have as ‘MG’.
Who is this man of mystery? What secret does he hide? Was MG in fact a GM? We will likely never know.
Board 4
Doctor Saldanha was a strong pick for board 4, and he had plenty of devilry up his sleeve. Just look at the picture. There’s a man who’s ready to play a few strokes.
He won against Michael Orr. Said Doctor Saldanha to the press after the event: “White played far too cautiously, seemingly more worried about avoiding mistakes rather than creating problems for Black. Given White’s play, Black sought to merely apply steady pressure and wasn’t looking for fireworks. (Truth be told, he was still recovering from his bruising 60+ move East India encounter the previous week.) White also used far too much of his clock early on giving Black a significant time advantage throughout the game. In fact, Black won on time with around 12 minutes remaining.”
Board 5
Headline of the evening – Mister Edwards is back. After a self-enforced exile in somewhere called ‘Wiltshire’ he is now slowly returning to modern civilisation, and with it playing some chess. Whether Mister Edwards wins or loses has always seemed somehow irrelevant – the public just want to see him play.
(He lost to Helen Fishwick).
Dinner
