We welcomed Bath for yet another cup final tussle. It was, in fact, the fourth time in the last five seasons that these two teams had contested the final. For a variety of reasons, neither of us was able to field our best team, so some new faces had a taste of the atmosphere.

We got off to a sticky start when Mark, who seemed to have some dangerous threats on board five, missed the best line and fell into a small coup which netted Clive at least a piece and Mark resigned on the spot.

This left me pondering if we could contrive to lose on board count! Although I fancied the chances of Oli and Peter with White on boards two and four, I didn't like the look of Reinhold's game at all. And the other four boards were too close to call.

All my planning as a spectator was thrown into disarray when one of my "bankers" agreed a draw. Peter had plenty of compensation for the sacrificed exchange, with Patrick's King being kicked from pillar to post but he could not see a way to finish him off so shook hands. Fair enough, a half point is a half point!

Meanwhile Reinhold's position could only be described in one word - "horrible", as he agreed afterwards. We were heading for just one half point from the first three games to finish.

On the bottom three boards: Steve W had won a piece but was under considerable pressure since Jason had passed e and f pawns and forced one of them through to f2; Martin had a solid position against Gagandeep but no immediate winning prospects; Hugo had only a small positional plus against Andreas.

Then the Fifth Cavalry appeared over the horizon. First Martin won a key pawn and liquidated all the pieces to reach an easily winning ending. Next Steve exchanged off a pair of minor pieces, a pair of rooks and also the Queens, so that all that remained was to gang up on the f2 pawn and then let his extra knight dominate the ending. Finally Hugo won a pawn and restricted the enemy rook and King so that eventually the rook was trapped - and that was curtains.

There was still a doomsday scenario whereby Reinhold duly lost to Steven, Oli couldn't quite convert against Rob and Steve M slipped up against his FM opponent, Roy. That would be a 4-4 loss on board count and it certainly wasn't beyond the realms of possibility for anyone who was present at the nail biting finale of the 2017 match.

In fact, Steve's game almost defies description here and you are recommended to play through it in order to get a proper idea of what was going on. A clever Nf2 by Steve was followed by a cunning Bxh7+ by Roy. Except that it shouldn't have worked and Steve gratefully accepted the piece only for Roy to uncork another shocker which threatened to win a rook back. There was still so much play in the position and of course by now they were both short of time. Suffice it to say, the final error was made by Roy after which Steve was able to skewer the Queen with his rook and garner an incredibly hard won point for the team. A true captain's innings!

So it was just left for Reinhold Houdini to accept a draw offer (don't ask how he did it!) and for Oli to win enough pawns to convert his rook ending, although not before stubborn defence by Rob.

It was almost an anticlimax not to have an exciting finish and the final 6-2 score line gives no clue as to what a strong fight Bath put up. But we shall take it gratefully as at least some compensation for narrowly missing out on the League title.