North Circular League – 2025-26

NC2

Played on Monday, 5 January 2026, Away

Report by Ian Hunnable (non-playing captain).

Thanks to everyone for playing tonight and providing one of the best matches it has been my pleasure to spectate.

The one-sided scoreline does not do Ilford justice. After we took the lead with a quick draw and Colin’s win, the other three games were extremely close, all being fought tenaciously by both sides. I was expecting all three to end ½-½ they were that close. But the visiting players stuck at it and gradually wore down the home players. On paper, Wanstead our-rated Ilford on every board, but the visitors were made to work hard to bring about the near-whitewash score-line.

Alex opened the scoring with an early draw against Jef Page at 8.44 pm, the position becoming blocked with pawn chains across the board with the only activity being on the K-side, but which threatened soon to join the deadlock. Shortly after this, Colin achieved a winning position against Noah. Black had got himself in a tangle and Colin was threatening to win Black’s QR, still on its starting square with the QN also not having moved. The knight had to fall on his sword to save the rook. So Colin was a clear piece up with Black’s king stuck in the centre, but it was another 45 minutes before Noah resigned. By this time, the other three games had got entrenched in hand-to-hand combat with the issue in each case being hard to call; three draws was not an unreasonable expectation, despite Wanstead holding a rating advantage on every board.

The next result was not until 10.21 when Matthias finally broke through Vincenzo’s lines to deliver a mate threat with no defence. This had been a semi-open game, but with equalising imbalance, so progress was difficult to achieve. Matthias won a pawn when Vincenzo inadvertently left a pawn en prise due to its support being pinned. Vincenzo’s efforts at counterplay were centred on advancing his a-pawn, but Matthias made light of this and broke through with a K-side assault and brought the king to his knees with a mating-attack by queen and rook.

The pick of these last three games was Ashwin’s. Queens came off in the early middlegame and for most of the evening, an unusual middlegame of two rooks and two minor pieces and five pawns each (Aswhin 2R and 2N, Neville 2R, N and B). Neville had the only open file (a-file) occupied by both his rooks and Ashwin was left to hold his isolated a-pawn, first on a2 then later a3. Neville’s pawns were mostly static and still on their starting squares from e7 to h7 (but no g-pawn) and a pair of doubled isolated pawns on the b-file, keeping his king in close attendance, but he had enough counterplay on the a-file with his two rooks and long-range dark squared bishop residing on g7, to keep Ashwin occupied with small threats. Ashwin had a vice-like grip with his c- and d- pawns, on c4 and d5 and for his part was probing Neville’s position for weaknesses and from my observation didn’t put a foot wrong; he avoided the tricks and traps laid by Neville, merging attack and defence with great maturity. Late in the evening – 10.34 – with exchanges eventually resolving into a rook and pawn ending, the position opened up and Ashwin penetrated on the K-side, picked off Neville’s f- and h-pawns and won with his advanced h- and g-pawns, the winning move being h8=Q.

A close second to Ashwin’s game was Philip’s daring winning strategy against Anthony Kent. The early middlegame had featured a closed position, but with clear potential for opening up with central pawn advances. When these came about, suddenly the position became double-edged with tricks and traps to catch out the unwary. This resolved after a series of exchanges into  a position with each player having Q and white-squared bishop and four pawns each, split two on each wing (both a- and b-pawns on one side and h- and g-pawns on the other) the central four files being completely open. Philip’s winning ploy was to charge his king down the board braving the completely open centre four files, his king fighting his way through a barrage of checks from the White queen with it’s companion bishop on f1 waiting for an injudicious imposition of Philip’s queen to a check on a white-square diagonal skewering Philip’s Q on the king; Philip was equal to it, all at blitz speeds. Anthony’s problem was that his king was trapped on the K-side and couldn’t join in the scrap. Philip’s brave ploy paid off as his king reached the Q-side and picked off both Anthony’s Q-side pawns, but the winning move was to x-ray the White queen and win the bishop; at 10.36.

Well done everyone!

We shoot from 4th place to top of the table, still having a match in hand over Chingford 2 and Loughton, in 2nd and 3rd spots. There are tougher tests to come, with the two matches against Barking 2 and the two against the slightly unknown quantity of Loughton. And Enfield 1 can put out a stronger line-up than we met in our opening fixture.