| 1. | w | default | 0-1 | David Collier |
| 2. | b | David Tebb | 0-1 | Alex easton |
| 3. | w | Glen Charleshouse | 1-0 | Stephen Dilleigh |
| 4. | b | default | 0-1 | James Parkin |
| 5. | w | Alan Smith | 1-0 | Jerry Humphreys |
| 6. | b | Ben Hague | 0-1 | Jack Rudd |
| 7. | w | Dale James | 1-0 | John Curtis |
| 8. | b | Claire Summerscale | ½-½ | Sabrina Chevannes |
| 3½-4½ |
Well, yet another for the annals of the great Eagles cock-ups. We didn't quite manage to get half the team on one side of a motorway service area and half on the other this time, but come 2.55pm on Saturday (i.e. 5 minutes before default time) there were only three Eagles (Alan Smith, Claire Summerscale and Dave Tebb) sat at their boards playing chess. With a couple of minutes to go Dale James, Glen Charleshouse and Ben Hague arrived panting at their boards. That meant we defaulted two boards, one of which could be put down to misfortune (Gary Quillan having his home burgled).
As far as the games themselves are concerned I was personally absent (unavailable) from this day of glory, so the following is based on what I've been told. It seems that all the rushing around to get to the venue only 58 minutes late was a bit too much for Ben's powers of concentration. He soon got a bad position and never really managed to get into his game. Alan Smith had no problems outclassing his opponent and neither did Dale or Glen despite their late arrivals. We did after all have to win 4½-1½ on the boards that were played, but that should have been possible given the disparity in grades. Claire was held to a draw with the black pieces by the fast-improving Sabrina Chevannes, who graced the Eagles team on a number of occasions last season. That made the score 3½-3½ so everything depended on Dave Tebb's game. Unfortunately Dave was deceived by a move-order finesse in a line of his favoured King's Indian and found himself playing a line known (if not to Dave himslf!) to be dubious for Black. Still worse, his opponent, only 2155, knew all the theory and adequately demonstrated why Dave's line was dubious. In the end our man went down in a long rook-and-pawn endgame to leave the final score 4½-3½ to our opponents.
I don't like using hyperbolic language like 'disaster' and 'catastrophe' for what is merely a setback, so I won't. However, many more disappointing results like this and we won't be going anywhere in a hurry. We simply can't afford to give teams, any team, two points start. If there is a positive we can take out of this débâcle it is that in a way it's better for this to happen against a team like Bristol2, who are likely to be relegation candidates, than against a rival for promotion.