Our happy band of heroes and one heroine turned up at Horfield on Tuesday to take on the challenge of their C-team, which consisted of players graded mostly similar to our team, with the exception of their board one who out-graded everyone else present.

This did not deter our brave board one, Dave, who, arrived slightly late after a horrendous drive back from work, and neutralised his "star" opponent to take a half point, which probably was the result that clinched the victory for us.

On the other boards, James, Elmira and I all won nicely a little before the scheduled end of the session, countered by a reversal for Aron, to take us to a 3.5 - 1.5 lead and the points in the bag.

The interest for the end of the match was Keith's unfortunate defeat in a technically drawn end game (ha! what do I know about technically drawn end games?), in which his clock was wrongly set and left him with a permanent 4 seconds on the clock, neither going up with the expected move increments, nor going down when it was his turn to move!

Under the circumstances, he rushed, not knowing how much time he really had left, and let the game slip.

Fortunately, the points had already been won, but I know he was justifiably frustrated by this.

I shall be unavailable for our next match, which is bad news (oh, please, stop laughing!), but the good news is that, subject to contractual arrangements with his manager, I will be replaced by a GOOD PLAYER.

I shall issue a further press release when contracts are signed.