Fenton Crash Out Of Withnall Trophy

Fenton were well beaten in the Withnall Trophy Semi-Final against Walsall Kipping last night. 2 late withdrawals - for the 2nd time this week - meant that we had to send a weakened team and we crashed out by 4-1. We actually went into a 1-0 lead early on thanks to a good win by Ernie on Board 2. Unfortunately, the rest of the team were unable to follow his example. For reasons best known to himself, John White decided to donate a Knight to his opponent very early on in the game and despite struggling on until the end of the evening there was only going to be one outcome. Pete Tideswell, playing on Board 4, obviously fancied himself as another Bobby Fischer as he made an extremely speculative and unsound sacrifice to leave himself a piece down for the rest of the game and the inevitable loss ensued. Stuart had a level position on Board 3 and could easily have drawn but, given the state of the match, he went for the win and ended up losing on time. Geoff, playing on Board 1, found himself a pawn down coming out of the opening. This later became 2 pawns and then 3 pawns and, despite stubborn resistance and being the last player to finish, he was like King Canute trying to hold back the tide and duly resigned.