The Cup semi final was scheduled to be between ourselves and a team made up of a combination of Hanham and Keynsham. For a variety of reasons neither team was able to field the players originally planned.

We were faced with a number of unavailabilities which caused the call up of a couple of old timers and one very much young timer. Meanwhile, the Keynsham half of our opponents apparently decided to rest on their laurels, having booted us out of the Minor Knockout the previous week. It is to Hanham's great credit that, at short notice, they went ahead and raised the full eight players from their own resources.

First to finish was James, who, sitting at the same spot where he won a nice attacking game against Clifton a few weeks earlier, proceeded to repeat the treatment. This time it was mate on move 16!

I was keen to win a best game prize and went all out for attack but, unfortunately, Barry wasn't playing ball and saw off my attempt and levelled the score at one all.

There was then quite a hiatus as the other six boards settled down to strategic planning. Dave restored our lead after his superior piece play led to the win of the exchange around move 25. Then his technique proved more than adequate to convert the win.

Hanham were heavily out-graded on the remaining boards but continued to put up stern resistance. Matthew won a pawn against Graham, although it developed into being a 4-3 majority on the King side, which was always going to be tricky to convert. As the clocks ran down a draw was agreed which was a very fair result.

This left the top four boards, where our rating advantage proved to be too much. Oscar, Oli, Reinhold and Mark all finally overcame the defences of Mike, Jonathon, Phillip and Tiiu respectively but all our players knew they had been in a serious match and it was well after 10pm before the final handshake.

In a season where we have seen some strange defaults and a certain lack of willingness to fulfil fixtures, it was great that Hanham overcame the problem that they were presented with and came and played this semi final. We hope they enjoyed the occasion. I think they know they acquitted themselves very well and they should be happy to enter again next season, on their own!