For this year's semi-final we welcomed one of the strongest teams, H & R, to Fishpond Club. As with any match against Horfield it was bound to be a close call on who would come out on top.

Their good Dr (in his match report) talked about W.G Grace and our link with this record-breaking cricketer. I therefore thought it was only right that we didn't forget the Fishponds part of our name... More important than ever these days.

By the 17th century the local area was a thriving village comprising of various stone cottages, and outhouses. These were primarily built to house the many quarrymen who worked at the nearby stone quarry. The quarry was rich in valuable pennant sandstone, a popular building material in Bristol at the time

Over time the incessant quarrying created open spaces as well as two large holes. As it happened, the deep holes were very receptive to surface drainage, and eventually they became flooded. They were then used to breed fish and became known as the 'Fishing Ponds'. So Fishponds was born, and once inhabited by gangs of quarrymen. It has been said that our players are always trying to unearth interesting positions over the board. Thank goodness it wasn't cavemen that came to live in Fishponds !

To the match

We were missing a couple of very important players, and to be fair so were H & R.

With the F-Team also having a home fixture the playing area was soon chock-a-block with players. At 7.35pm, with loads of chit chat still going, I had to remind the players that there was still an important match to be played, and please could they start their clocks.

The games began.

Board one - O.Garcia v C.Brewer

The top two boards are no strangers to sitting opposite each other this season, and as usual, they gave us an exciting game. After the opening, a very open position soon occurred. It was complex with several hanging pieces around the board, almost too many to count. Oscar was a pawn up and looking good, but annoyingly for him, and with so much to try and calculate, he made a losing blunder. Callum came across to pencil in the result. His words "I got very lucky"

Board two - M Ashworth v M Candelario

Mike had a better opening and went a pawn up. His position was looking very promising, and he held onto a healthy advantage for most of the game. However, by his own admission, he could not quite work out how best to press home his advantage. This let Mathias in and allowed him get his pieces better coordinated. Then the game completely switched, and with upcoming time pressure, Mike unfortunately lost a piece and then the game.

Board three - A Saunders v D Pugh

A misplaced pawn re-capture in the centre by Aron allowed his king to become rather exposed. Derek grabbed the initiative, but Aron being a strong player, made it as difficult as he could, and he did. But Derek is also a strong player, and he continued to play accurately and didn't let Aron back in the game.

Board four - O Stubbs v P Kirby

Early on there was a fair bit of manoeuvring, but not necessarily the greatest from Oli (so he says). As pieces gradually came off, Peter missed an interesting chance to get a two knight versus rook ending. Instead it was knight plus 5 v knight plus 5, with Peter having a passed a-pawn. However, this pawn was pushed too far, and was rounded up by Oli's knight. Oli was now in his element and slowly converted his extra pawn advantage.

Board five - R Heinlein v P Nendick

This game started with a strange, will they/ won't they have a Benoni position. Phil finally decided to take the space with d5, but in the end Reinhold came crashing through with b5.

A bit later Phil missed an opportunity to fight back with a Queen fork on Reinholds King and Knight. Reinhold subsequently held his nerve and took the point.

Board six - N Hosken v P Marks

After several moves of theory were completed, the game was surprisingly soon over. Nigel was making good progress on the queenside; he then won the exchange and Peter decided it was time to resign

Board seven - D Gomez v L Millard

After some well-played theory, Daniel slowly slowly improved his position. Then when it looked like both players would need to bunker down, Luke suddenly blundered a piece with a pin against his Queen. Resignation followed immediately.

Board eight - D Tipper v N Pollett

Funnily enough board 8 was the last to finish, and as it turned out the most important point to play for.

Dave soon had a great position, and as the game progressed he steadily increased his advantage. Nigel was forced to give up a piece with Dave having a monster pawn on f6. They were both slowly going low on time, and Nigel suddenly had a chance to save the game, but he would have needed to find a computer like retreating King move. Not surprisingly he didn't and Dave wrapped up the match.

So Downend wins 5-3, but Horfield showed how strong they are on the top boards with three wins on boards 1 to 3

Luckily for us our strength in depth saved the day, and a clean sweep from boards 4 to 8.

The Quarrymen reach the final yet again.

Thanks go to Oli and Dan for their analytical contributions in this report!