The week started with local rivals Kidderminster bringing both their Wolverhampton league teams to us on Monday. Whilst the two ‘A’ teams were evenly matched in division 1 their ‘B’ team in division 4 was significantly stronger than our ‘D’ team full of youngsters.

In Division 1 we had two real heavyweights playing who easily outgraded their opponents but also needed two reserves who were themselves noticeably outgraded by their opponents.

First to finish in the division one match was reserve Ron Evans who drew. This was a good result.

Jeremy Fallowfield and Nick Arkell had both scored wins but Keith Arkell drew on board 1 and Greg Dyett and John Foxall had both lost, so the match was drawn.

It will be another close fight this season as we try to defend our title.

The Stourbridge board 4, Aimee Erb played a lovely opening and was initially ahead. It was her opponent’s first sniff of victory and he started to make it tell. He now invaded the seventh rank and it was soon over.

Meanwhile, board 2 Dan Arkell went a piece for pawn ahead, but it had cost him his g-pawn exposing his castled King. He was eventually mated deep in enemy territory on the 7th or 8th rank.

Charlie-Ann’s opponent played the ending correctly eventually queening and it was soon 0-3 Kidderminster. With the match gone Chris Williamson resigned an inferior position.

It was 0-4 to Kidderminster but the Stoubridge youngsters had played well and learnt a lot from the experience.

On Wednesday we hosted two Birmingham matches; Olton in division 1 and Kynoch in division 5.

Olton arrived with the expected full strength team that would be a very good match for our own full strength team with Julie Wilson as reserve. For the division5 match, Kynoch had a 140+ board 1 and a competent board 2 but the rest of their team were all graded under 100, so Stourbridge should have had the advantage.

The division 1 match started off close on all boards but eventually reserve Julie Wilson lost and the other 5 games were adjourned. It looks like Stourbridge should win boards 4 and 5, lose board 3 and draw the top 2 boards. Stourbridge are hoping to offer this package to Olton which would result in a drawn match.

The division 5 match looked good even from the early stages with Steve Alcock and Martin Berridge both having extra pawns.

The division 5 team eventually won convincingly, 5-1. Tony Shaw drew with the 140+, Jeremy Humphries, Sam Bradley, Colin Woodall and Steve Alcock all won. This is a good result that still leaves us challenging at the top of the table with 7 points from 4 matches.