Leicestershire convincingly won their National U100 final against Warwickshire 8½ – 3½ at the Trident Centre, Warwick on Saturday. It’s the first time Leicestershire have won the title in this section since the the competition began in 1995/96 which is well before 8 of the 12 players (all juniors) in action for Leicestershire were born. The margin of victory was impressive for a National final and the scoresheet makes for extremely solid reading with wins for Joseph Ward-Langman (unbeaten in 6 games in the U100s this season and equal with George Worrow-Goodin on 4½/6 in points for the team), John Mckiernan, Stephen Matts, Umar Syed, Sasha Kerbel (making his U100 debut) and Jason LV and a further 5 draws by other team members (see full scoresheet below).
From the first game to finish (a win for Sasha Kerbel) to the last (an impressive and patiently mature win by youngest team member Umar Syed) Leicestershire were always in front and never allowed Warwickshire to get into a threatening match score position.
The detailed match scoresheet is here
The results this season wouldn’t have been possible without a larger squad of players than were able to represent the team in the final. The full squad of 21 comprised:
Joseph Ward Langman, George Worrow Goodin, Stuart Hollingworth, John Mckiernan, Mick Adams, Stephen Matts, Anika Khare, Paul Martin, Umar Syed, Sasha Kerbel, Rory Haywood, Jason LV, Thomas Blay, Reg Agger, Paul Mottram, Milly Kotecha, Parag Kotecha, Trevor Woods, Mick Griffiths, Neil Roberts, Stewart Gordon
Neil Roberts (njhammer@ntlworld.com) will be taking over the U100 captaincy next season (he kindly took on the role of non-playing captain for most of the final) and Paul Mottram (chess@paulmottram.com) intends to run a U120 team. Contact from players interested in playing would be most welcome. Report by Paul Mottram