Kingston 3 v Ashtead 2, Surrey League division 4 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 8 December 2025

This meeting in the Centenary Trophy, division 4 of the Surrey League, saw two relatively strong teams pitted against each other, and the 5-1 victory for Ed Mospan’s Kingston 3 side was a considerable achievement. A very welcome one, too, on a night when Kingston 1 suffered an unexpected and painful defeat to Epsom 1, the latest in a string of reverses for the club’s higher-rated teams.

Recent recruit Xavier Cowan (pictured above, foreground left), who is already doing great things at Kingston, beat Ashtead’s very capable Tom Barton with Black on board 1. The opening was a very interesting line of the Sicilian and in this position White has a healthy advantage, but he goes for a tactic which doesn’t quite work.

Homayoon Froogh continued his tremendous winning run with victory over Ashtead captain Bertie Barlow on board 2. He grabbed a pawn in the opening and, once White had made a couple of ill-advised trades, never looked back.

Martyn Jones drew with Black against the very experienced Adrian Waldock on board 3 – like Homayoon, Martyn is having a terrific spell – and I drew with White against Ashley Wilson on board 4. In time-honoured fashion, I missed a likely win because I omitted an important intermezzo in the position below.

That made it 3-1 to Kingston, and Genc Tasbasi and Dieter McDougall completed an emphatic win with victories in well-contested games on boards 5 and 6. It’s still early days of course, but with a team of this strength and confidence Kingston 3 could have a shot at winning the Centenary Trophy this season. Promotion would be useful as we have a lot of players who would benefit from games in division 3.

Stephen Moss