When one of our players failed to arrive on time, Nigel established that he had turned up Away at Hanham for our Home match. He was late as, again, were most of our opponents. Whilst waiting, there was even time for us to set up the tables, boards, clocks and score sheets for the F-team match before all of our F-team arrived!

Hanham A's team sheet showed no surprises and our expected grading superiority materialised. However, as we know from our previous experiences this Season, this does not necessarily imply an easy win. Indeed, the early signs were of another close match.

Richard continued his fine form by picking up a-pawn in the opening and then liquidating to a winning-pawn ending. Neil had a rather different game from last week's masterpiece. There was a great amount of pushing-pawns early on by both players; neither managed to establish a piece in their opponents half of the board without withdrawing or exchanging it a move or two later. A draw seemed a fair result.

After two hours things were not looking good. I had managed to trap my own piece and lose it for a-pawn or two, whilst Nigel had lost a couple of-pawns. James' game was unclear with most pieces still on the board and close hostilities not yet commenced. Luckily, John had established what looked like a winning rook and-pawn ending. So a drawn match seemed the favourite outcome.

John then consolidated his advantage and overcame Martyn's resistance with threats of queening. Shortly afterwards, James' swapped off pieces into a favourable bishop versus knight ending in which Phil had to give up his knight for a passed 'a' pawn. This proved decisive once James had halted the advance of his opponent's connected-pawns. 3.5-0.5 and the match won.

In what appeared to be a strong position, David made a couple of slips which firstly cost him a-pawn and then shortly afterwards allowed Nigel a perpetual check to rescue a draw. Glen built up a winning position in which I had virtually no counter-play and so I tried to defend as best as I could whilst creating some complexities. With less than ten minutes left, Glen missed some winning moves and then later on I was given a chance to counter attack and push a passed-pawn to try to divert his attack. With the match won, we agreed a draw in a complicated position that needed more than the two minutes we both had remaining to work out its intricacies.

Another win - although certainly a flattering result for us. We are now away to our best start for a long time.