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Essex Knockout Final – Unique double and Wanstead hat-trick

Played 19 September 2023, at Wanstead

Board	WANSTEAD A	R1	R2	BARKING A
1	Hodgson, John H 2118 (W, B)	1-0	½-½	Goldberg, Jeff A 2146 (B, W)
2	Gill, Oliver 2086	1-0	1-0	Ismailov, Roman 2107
3	Spearman, David 2034	1-0	½-½	Jaszkiwskyj, Peter 1958
4	Cawdery, John 2027	1-0	½-½	Robinson, James M 1863
5	Mulay, Partha 2001	1-0	0-1	Ramage, Colin R 1844
	Average: 2054	5-0	2½-2½	Average: 1984
		7½-2½

When John Hodgson accepted Jeff Goldberg’s draw offer in Round 2, Wanstead completed a unique Cup and Plate double, the B Team having beaten Loughton – also by 7½-2½ – in the Plate Final two weeks earlier. Unique double. Never been done before.

On the accepted way-of-the-world, that Wanstead-Barking matches are always close – we’re talking ‘the odd point’, ‘draw’ and ‘board count’ here – what happened in Round 1 of this latest encounter, defied reason. A whitewash. Barking needed to reverse the result on every board in Round 2 to force a replay. Such was Barking’s plight that it was Jeff who offered the R2 draw, having succumbed to a searing Hodgson K-side attack in R1, which decided the match. Colin reversed his R1 defeat, while Boards 3 and 4 were agreed, leaving Ollie to complete the only win-win double of the match and Barking to retrieve some self-respect sharing the points in R2.

And the hat-trick? Well, it’s a “Wanstead” hat-trick: Wanstead B defeated Wanstead A in the 2019 Final, Wanstead A beat Barking A in 2022 (the only competition since 2019 due to covid) and the above Wanstead A repeat success.

A short slideshow…

ECA website: KO Page | KO Tables | KO on ECF LMS