The D team welcomed Thornbury knowing that if we could win the match our position in Division Three would be secured for another season. An early look around suggested that we had a promising start with both Carolus and Miguel taking advantage of the White pieces.

In fact Carolus’s effort was one of the star performances of the evening (he was in good company with Oscar!) By move 12 his knight had a handy outpost on b5 and when Justin nudged it away with a7-a6 he fell for a small combination which netted the d6 pawn for White. A few moves later Carolus's rook was anchored on b6 with his bishop unopposed on h6. His d and e pawns had both burst through to the fifth rank and Black’s bishop was stranded away from the action! A tactic by Justin simply lost the bishop and it was all over a few moves later.

Miguel meanwhile had a promising looking position, although on closer examination he had lost a central pawn. But his far better development and spacial advantage meant that it was Miguel who was asking all the questions and, when Joaquin missed a saving manoeuvre, Miguel unleashed a combination which left him decisively ahead on material.

Then we started to see positions slip. Next to me on board two Dave, by his own admission, was playing too many inconsequential moves on the Queen-side while Lynda was building a heavy piece attack against his castled King; she trebled all three of them on the h file and there was no escape route for Dave’s King.

Greg was trying out a new defence and was fine up to move 15, when he in fact had a small plus. But then a couple of inaccurate moves allowed Chris to transform the position, leading to a forced checkmate .

From what I saw of Nigel’s game, his rook became a bit exposed in the middle of the board which cost one pawn at first and it deteriorated into a losing endgame.

So I (Ian) needed to win against David with Black to square the match but that was never going to happen against his cautious and solid opening. We both missed some best moves but by move 23 I was down on the clock with no prospects of forcing anything and had no alternative to accepting a draw when he offered it to clinch the match for them.

So now we need to beat Bath in the final match of the season to be certain of survival, although it will be irrelevant if Cabot A lose to Clifton C, since they are currently a point behind us.

Final score 3½-2½ to Thornbury