Ashtead are the “yo-yo team” in division 2 of the Surrey League, having been relegated from division 1 last season and promoted the season before. So on paper this was one of our toughest matches. Ashtead substantially outrated us on boards 1 to 3, thanks to Kingston’s own Peter Lalić making his third appearance of the season against the second-team squad (the other two in the Thames Valley League for our own first team). However, Ashtead were missing some of their middle-order batting, so we had the rating advantage on the lower boards.

David Rowson was kind enough to captain this match, as I was returning from Paris and could not guarantee reaching the venue before the start time. Happily Eurostar was on time, and I was able to attend. Indeed, with David Maycock struggling to arrive before the default time, I was nearly required to substitute in on board 1. Had I done so, I would have outrated the Wimbledon board 1, an illustration of the huge disparity between the ratings of the two teams, an average of over 300 points a board. The story of the night was that Wimbledon, depleted by the absence of several players at a tournament in Guernsey, nearly overcame that difference.

Two very solid-looking teams lined up for this one, with Guildford 2 having the rating advantage on the top four boards and Kingston 2 on boards 5 to 7. I lost the toss, a significant advantage for Guildford in a closely balanced match with an odd number of boards.

Kingston C were outrated by Hounslow C in their opening Div X match of the season, so to emerge as 3-1 victors was quite an achievement. The team had been assembled by Jon Eckert, but was captained on the night by Genc Tasbasi, as Jon had to leave once the preliminaries had been conducted.