End of season, snapshots of gloom, part four
Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 4:12 pm
...in which JR explains how four teams, always likely to be relegated, were in fact relegated, and why most of them will likely come back up again
Oxford
Oxford had had a nice time of it since being repromoted to division one in 2013/14. They ought to have been relegated again during that season, but finished 13th and were reprieved after the withdrawal of Wood Green 2. That enabled them to keep their star junior, Justin Tan, and together with other reinforcements (eg soon-to -be IM David Martins from Portugal) even managed to be in the championship pool in 2014/15 and again in 2017/18. (They would have been regarded as number nine seeds this year, incidentally, which, had they lived up to it, would have made the starting pools look more evenly balanced).
But last year's success papered over the cracks; it had been achieved despite the recruitment of Marcus Harvey by Wood Green, and over the summer of 2018 Wood Green added Justin Tan to their Oxford check out basket while Martins returned to Portugal. As fate would have it, their first match of the season was against Wood Green, and even a weakened Wood Green side made 7-1 with worrying ease. But Oxford showed considerable determination in a difficult season. An eighth round win against relegation rivals in Celtic Tigers gave real prospects of survival after all, but that pairing meant that they had to cope with both a reinforced 3Cs and a reinforced Grantham Sharks in the last weekend and that proved too much. They won to order in the last round against Midland Monarchs, but by then they had to rely on Celtic Tigers slipping up again. That they did - see above - but unfortunately for Oxford, North East England were in no state to take advantage.
Prospects for immediate repromotion: more likely than not.
West is Best
The other team from the original Pool A which immediately made a surprise win in round eight against one of the Pool B teams, namely 3Cs themselves. This was a timely pairing (given the likelihood of 3Cs being stronger in the final weekend) but it would have made more difference if Oxford had benefited fom it: West is Best carried just one draw from its three matches in Pool A and still had too much to do, making just one draw in the final weekend. Name change notwithstanding, basically every player in the first team in the final weekend had come from the orignal South Wales Dragons team and relegation marked the extended stay of the Dragons in division one from the start of the 2014/5 season, during which they too were once reprieved (having finished 13th in 2014/5 but saved by the late withdrawal of the e2e4 team) and benefited from the recruitment of Katarzyna Toma. Had everyone made the same results on other boards as Dragons stalwart Sven Zeidler on board eight, all would have been fine after all.
Prospects for immediate repromotion: they have a number of able but slightly offbeat players who are well suited to division two. They could win virtually every game on board eight for starters, and the question is rather whether they will win the division.
North East England
To be honest, I have been impressed that NE England have twice earned promotion from the second division and I had rather expected them to finish lower in this year's first division (well, it's true; they even somehow managed to lose Tim Wall in the process of repromotion). They then had an excellent pool A, beating West is Best and bringing two other daws with them to the final relegation pool; where, alas they were roughly treated by the teams from Pool B. Their best chance was in round nine when they took advantage from a remarkable lapse from Peter Roberson to give a close match to Grantham, and Lynda Smith added an impressive win on board eight, but Grantham's Peter Batchelor's neat 43...e3 on board five dashed their last hopes. They seemed ready to go home by the last round: Celtic Tigers could hardly have dreamed of such compliant opposition in their own difficult circumstances.
Prospects for immediate repromotion: do they even want it? Their good results against the teams coming down with them and previous successful promotion attempts give cause for encouragement, but there seem to be a number of stronger division two teams, eg Anglian Avengers and ADs, waiting to compete with them as well.
Alba
There are generally few surprises by the very end of a 4NCL season. Perhaps Alba finishing last counts as the greatest surprise this season. They had just survived in twelth place last year, but it had been their first year in division one, and the addition of Manx Liberty could, from their perspective. be somehow compensated for in "relegation battle" terms by the weakening of Oxford. They too scored a win and two draws against the other teams in Pool a who followed them into the relegation pool, though they would presumably have hoped for more; and they too were roughly treated by the teams joining the pool from pool B. The crucial loss was, again, that against Celtic Tigers, in round 10, where they got off to the worst possible start by losing quickly with the Kings Gambit White on board two. The off beat opening on board seven (1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nd2 Qb6) seemed to qualify as one which is "no good even when it works" but luckily a draw was still on offer. And this was their best match of the weekend. The match might have been saved on board five, where Alba had an extra pawn in the ending, but the Magnus Carlsen knack hasn't filtered down that far just yet, and Alba really needed to win anyway.
Prospects for immediate repromotion: very likely, indeed possible champions of division two if the same team continues.
(a couple of words edited in the Oxford section. Scroll down the thread and all will be revealed)
Oxford
Oxford had had a nice time of it since being repromoted to division one in 2013/14. They ought to have been relegated again during that season, but finished 13th and were reprieved after the withdrawal of Wood Green 2. That enabled them to keep their star junior, Justin Tan, and together with other reinforcements (eg soon-to -be IM David Martins from Portugal) even managed to be in the championship pool in 2014/15 and again in 2017/18. (They would have been regarded as number nine seeds this year, incidentally, which, had they lived up to it, would have made the starting pools look more evenly balanced).
But last year's success papered over the cracks; it had been achieved despite the recruitment of Marcus Harvey by Wood Green, and over the summer of 2018 Wood Green added Justin Tan to their Oxford check out basket while Martins returned to Portugal. As fate would have it, their first match of the season was against Wood Green, and even a weakened Wood Green side made 7-1 with worrying ease. But Oxford showed considerable determination in a difficult season. An eighth round win against relegation rivals in Celtic Tigers gave real prospects of survival after all, but that pairing meant that they had to cope with both a reinforced 3Cs and a reinforced Grantham Sharks in the last weekend and that proved too much. They won to order in the last round against Midland Monarchs, but by then they had to rely on Celtic Tigers slipping up again. That they did - see above - but unfortunately for Oxford, North East England were in no state to take advantage.
Prospects for immediate repromotion: more likely than not.
West is Best
The other team from the original Pool A which immediately made a surprise win in round eight against one of the Pool B teams, namely 3Cs themselves. This was a timely pairing (given the likelihood of 3Cs being stronger in the final weekend) but it would have made more difference if Oxford had benefited fom it: West is Best carried just one draw from its three matches in Pool A and still had too much to do, making just one draw in the final weekend. Name change notwithstanding, basically every player in the first team in the final weekend had come from the orignal South Wales Dragons team and relegation marked the extended stay of the Dragons in division one from the start of the 2014/5 season, during which they too were once reprieved (having finished 13th in 2014/5 but saved by the late withdrawal of the e2e4 team) and benefited from the recruitment of Katarzyna Toma. Had everyone made the same results on other boards as Dragons stalwart Sven Zeidler on board eight, all would have been fine after all.
Prospects for immediate repromotion: they have a number of able but slightly offbeat players who are well suited to division two. They could win virtually every game on board eight for starters, and the question is rather whether they will win the division.
North East England
To be honest, I have been impressed that NE England have twice earned promotion from the second division and I had rather expected them to finish lower in this year's first division (well, it's true; they even somehow managed to lose Tim Wall in the process of repromotion). They then had an excellent pool A, beating West is Best and bringing two other daws with them to the final relegation pool; where, alas they were roughly treated by the teams from Pool B. Their best chance was in round nine when they took advantage from a remarkable lapse from Peter Roberson to give a close match to Grantham, and Lynda Smith added an impressive win on board eight, but Grantham's Peter Batchelor's neat 43...e3 on board five dashed their last hopes. They seemed ready to go home by the last round: Celtic Tigers could hardly have dreamed of such compliant opposition in their own difficult circumstances.
Prospects for immediate repromotion: do they even want it? Their good results against the teams coming down with them and previous successful promotion attempts give cause for encouragement, but there seem to be a number of stronger division two teams, eg Anglian Avengers and ADs, waiting to compete with them as well.
Alba
There are generally few surprises by the very end of a 4NCL season. Perhaps Alba finishing last counts as the greatest surprise this season. They had just survived in twelth place last year, but it had been their first year in division one, and the addition of Manx Liberty could, from their perspective. be somehow compensated for in "relegation battle" terms by the weakening of Oxford. They too scored a win and two draws against the other teams in Pool a who followed them into the relegation pool, though they would presumably have hoped for more; and they too were roughly treated by the teams joining the pool from pool B. The crucial loss was, again, that against Celtic Tigers, in round 10, where they got off to the worst possible start by losing quickly with the Kings Gambit White on board two. The off beat opening on board seven (1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nd2 Qb6) seemed to qualify as one which is "no good even when it works" but luckily a draw was still on offer. And this was their best match of the weekend. The match might have been saved on board five, where Alba had an extra pawn in the ending, but the Magnus Carlsen knack hasn't filtered down that far just yet, and Alba really needed to win anyway.
Prospects for immediate repromotion: very likely, indeed possible champions of division two if the same team continues.
(a couple of words edited in the Oxford section. Scroll down the thread and all will be revealed)