Weekend 5
The fifth 4NCL Weekend was something of a bunfight in Division Three (Knights) – or on reflection maybe that should be a dogfight. Ashfield 1 started the weekend in joint 10th place on 5/16 but with 7 other teams in a group fighting relegation. The four teams at the top were well away in their promotion battle.
Celtic Tigers were adrift on 2/16 and looked destined for relegation. In Rounds 9 & 10 Ashfield beat two of their main rivals, Oxford 2 in Round 9 and Iceni 1 in Round 10 both by scores of 4-2. Around us chaos reigned – Celtic won their last three games to finish on 8/22 whilst Surbiton and Rhyfelwyr Essyllwg lost all three games. Luckily for these latter two teams they had already reached 9 points which turned out to be enough to survive and they finished in a triple tie with Ashfield who astonishing finished as 5th on tie break.
Had Ashfield not won in Rounds 9 & 10 they would have been in dire straits. Oxford 2’s loss in Round 11 to Celtic meant that they were bottom on 7/22 and relegated. Four teams tied on 8/22 and despite their final weekend heroics, Celtic were lowest placed on Game count and took the second relegation place.
In Round 11 with their position already secure Ashfield faced Poole Patzers who needed a win and in a closely contested match the South West team eventually won by 3½-2½ which was sufficient to win promotion as League champions. Again just one point separated the top four teams.
Stars of this final weekend were young players Senith Gunarathne ( 2½/3) and Benjamin Humphreys (1½/2). Without them our efforts would certainly have been in vain.
Finally a footnote about Division Three (Bishops) – in that Division the bottom two teams on 2/22 and 4/22 took the relegation places. A team on 6/22 survived – very lucky they weren’t in Division Three Knights.
On now to Division Four where Ashfield 2 and Ashfield 3 were playing. Both teams ended in solid mid-table positions with the thirds on 12/22 outscoring the seconds on 11/22. The positions were rather skew-whiff because of the odd number of teams in the Division. Consequently the seconds played in a triple team match in Rounds 9 & 10 and the thirds in a triple half-match in the final round. Don’t ask me to explain how those worked. Both sides scored two wins over the weekend with neither challenging for promotion. 3C’s won the Division with 21/22 with a squad that included three masters.
Can I thank everyone for their support over the season.
Neil Graham