Thursday 10/11/2022. Anstey 1 welcomed Wigston 3 to the Methodist Church Centre in this in LRCA Division 2 clash and scored an emphatic 4-0 win, the first whitewash in the division this season. With John back from injury Anstey looked to field their regular first team of Julian, John, Matt & Mick until Mick himself withdrew in the pre-match warm up after a reaction to a course of anti-biotics. The last-minute change saw super-sub Boris once again stepping in. No such luck as a night off Boris! With the team lists hurriedly updated Anstey had a decisive on-paper advantage (7,048 vs 6,633) and as the clock ticked past 19:30 battle commenced.

The first game to finish was board 2, John playing as white against Les Corlett. After a steady opening Les left his a-pawn en prise which John gobbled up with his rook infiltrating on the queenside. John’s pieces streamed forward squeezing the life out of black’s position. It looked like John was really enjoying the game as he threw in a nice tactic to win another pawn:

Les carried on courageously but John forced home his advantage and took the win. Anstey 1 – Wigston 0.

Boris was white against Paul Mottram on board 4 and was the next to finish. Boris went for his trademark kingside attack throwing his pawns forward opening the h-file and winning a pawn followed by ganging-up his rook and queen on said h-file. Paul defended by swapping off the major pieces but this left knight and 7 pawns vs knight and 6 pawns and a +3 advantage. Knights are tricky pieces of course but Boris made no fatal errors as he ground out a 60-move win. Anstey 2 – Wigston 0.

Matt fished next playing Stuart Dawkins on board 3 with the black pieces. Against Stuart’s e4 and c4 setup Matt delayed the breaking d5 until he was a bit more developed and castled. Stuart expanded on the queenside but delayed castling giving Matt just enough time to grab the white pawn on b4 with his bishop and defend in the centre. White offered an exchange of queens giving black a solid edge. But white’s light-squared bishop was lurking with menace on g2 and had control of the whole diagonal. Matt went for the plan of swapping it off but lost his edge in the double rook, knight and 5 pawns vs 4 ending. As time ticked down both sides made errors, the rooks came off leaving another tricky knight endgame. Luckily Matt managed to win another pawn and with connected passed pawns (and no further mistakes) Stuart resigned. Anstey 3 – Wigston 0.  

Julian faced off against Andrew Pike with black on board 1. In a departure from his regular setup Julian came out of the opening slightly cramped. Andrew continued to press his space advantage but just when he seemed to be about to break through an inaccuracy allowed black’s dark-squared bishop to get into the game with Bd4+. Julian followed this up with the delicious 26. … Nxd5:

Unfortunately, Andrew then made another mistake, Julian pushed his b-pawn all the way, giving up a rook but queening the pawn. In a hopeless position Andrew’s flag fell. Anstey 4 – Wigston 0.

Anstey 1 remain unbeaten in the league and move up to second place.

Anstey captain Matt Connor told East Midlands Railway:
I’m relieved! Mine and Julian’s games could easily have gone either way but I’ll gladly take the win. We’ve made a solid start to the season but so far have only played the bottom 4 teams, the next few games will be make or break!