NYCA U15 Championship: 21st November, Solihull

Sussex took a young but very strong team to the NYCA Under 15 championship at Arden School in Birmingham this Saturday. We added the top 8 boards of our successful under 13 team to our 4 mainstay “veterans”, Joe Fraser, Grant Bucher, Joe Richardson and Andrew Tucker.

We got off to an excellent start with strong performances on nearly every board. Ben Blundell won well against Sam Lazarus of Glamorgan, and Grant Bucher defeated Craig Whitfield who has just come back from the World Junior Championships. Elliott Auckland of Kent managed to beat George Salimbeni in a Crowborough derby, but we were very happy with 10.5 points from the 1st round. We were already comfortably ahead of Kent, who we thought would be our main rivals.

The 2nd round didn’t go so well, Farris lost to Lawrence Stannard of Kent this time, and with a few other disappointing results we came back to the field with 8 points. Kent managed to have a great 2nd round amassing 10.5 points, but we still had a vital one point lead.

After a stirring team talk and a distribution of delicious home-made Cake and Brownies, not to mention a few Mars Bars and Snickers, the team went out to put matters beyond doubt with the now legendary “3rd round spurt”. Rhys Cumming gained a quick win and it soon became clear we were winning on almost every board. 8 of the bottom 9 boards reported back with wins and we were safe. Kent completed the clean sweep over us when Lyall Bayliss beat Andrew Tucker in another Crowborough Derby.

Joe Richardson, Tristan Blundell, Chris Linnett, David Grant and Nick Fraser cleaned me out of my Roses/ Celebrations supply by all getting maximum scores.

Congratulations go to Kent and Glamorgan for finishing in 2nd and 3rd place, and pushing us all the way.

A special mention must go to our under 12’s and 11’s, Christopher Linnett, Farris Ziyada, David Grant, Ben Blundell, Rhys Cumming, George Salimbeni and Nick Fraser. In the last 6 months they have won the National Under 11’s, Under 13’s and Under 15’s, which I’m pretty sure no-one else has ever done.

Report by Team Manager, Scott Fraser