Surbiton 1 v Kingston 2, Surrey League division 2 match played at Fircroft, Surbiton 19 November 2025
For this match I deputised as captain for Peter Andrews, who was busy moving house, though he did manage to come to the venue later to support his team. The thread of his WhatsApp commentary expressed well the twists and turns of the match, in which for a long time the final decisive result appeared improbable. Surbiton had a rating edge on five of the boards, and on the other two the ratings were close to parity.
The first game to finish was on board 3, where Alan Scrimgour (who had Black) and Joshua Pirgon agreed a draw, despite the fact that, as Alan Scrimgour said later, he was possibly slightly worse in the final position. After that the difficulties of my own game required all my concentration, so I wasn’t aware of the order of events.
I did, however, register that Stephen Moss was conducting a devastating kingside attack with Black against Graham Alcock on board 7. One thing that was original about this was that Stephen had opened with the Caro-Kann Defence and then castled queenside – commendably ambitious play. A key early moment came in this position.
In the board 1 game, Mark Josse began with the English Opening against Kingston’s Jasper Tambini (pictured above, right), and the two players castled on opposite sides. The presence of all four bishops on open diagonals made for a double-edged position.
The board 4 game between Stephen Lovell and Liam Bayly had also begun as an English Opening. White was able to put pressure on Black’s queenside pawns.
On board 5, Homayoon Froogh had Black against Neil Davies. It was an intense struggle, but after a long period of manoeuvring Homayoon got on top in a time scramble to record another good win. Meanwhile Jon Eckert, with White on board 6, was pressing Nick Faulks hard with a kingside attack. He showed principle in refusing to take a draw by perpetual check, but unfortunately a subsequent error resulted in him losing.
On board 2, having misplayed the middlegame and lost a pawn with White against David Scott, I tried to find tactical resources to avoid going straight into a lost endgame. In this position I was eventually successful.
So Kingston 2 defied the ratings to achieve a clear victory in a very well-contested match. We look forward to the return match against Surbiton 1 at home tomorrow.
David Rowson is Kingston second-team captain in the Thames Valley League and was acting captain in this Surrey League match
