Rooney’s Best game not quite enough

Shrewsbury A travelled to Church Stretton (well, Condover actually, but I’m sure you get what I mean) on Tuesday night for their first division match. It was a game unusual in the sense that Best-Rooney appeared twice on the match scorecard – the young upstarts on two and their sons doing battle on board 5.

It was, however, a game devoid of any Bests or Rooneys that started the scoring off. Jamie Hopkins continued his unbeaten season when he agreed a, erm, “brief” draw on top board with Trevor Brotherton, and the result from that opening  game was then matched on board 5; the first of the two family clashes finishing level after Matt and Francis agreed a draw. Many of the pieces had been swapped off, with level material and no clear advantage – although Matt’s Bishop was better than Francis’ Knight, it far from a clearly winning position.

Things then took a turn for the worse for the visitors. Dan Lockett was forced into either getting his Queen trapped or losing a Bishop – unsurprisingly he opted for the latter and eventually lost.

David Everington’s game on board three against John Whittaker was next to finish. Despite being two pawns up and having a considerable time advantage, John offered David a draw due to the fact that it would guarantee at least a draw overall for Stretton, but David initially declined, thinking that he needed to win to allow Shrewsbury any chance of salvaging anything from that match. After a quick conversation with captain Jamie, he realised the situation and settled for a half point.

That result left Francis needing to win on board two in order to rescue the match, and he faced a real struggle. Steve had sacrificed pieces left, right and centre (indeed, possibly some more slightly off-centre!) and threw everything forward in a fascinating game. After some deep calculation, Francis had come to the conclusion that two rooks, a bishop and a Knight should be more than a match for Steve’s solitary Queen, but he found it incredibly tricky to break through with Steve constantly finding resources while avoiding falling into any Queen-losing traps.

Eventually, Francis managed to secure the win with both players under real time pressure, and therefore ensure the match was drawn. It was a fitting way to decide a title, let alone a solitary match, with Steve remarking after that it was one of the best games he had ever been involved in and Francis failing to get much sleep over the night due to a few Queen-related nightmares! Hopefully, it will be up and annotated on our interesting games page (if you have some spare time, check it out. If you don’t, look all the same) in no time at all.

Shrewsbury A 2.5-2.5 Church Stretton A

1. J. Hopkins 0.5-0.5 T. Brotherton
2. F. Best 1-0 S. Rooney
3. D. Everington 0.5-0.5 J. Whittaker
4. D. Lockett 0-1 G. Shepherd
5. M. Best 0.5-0.5 F. Rooney