Market Bosworth, Saturday 15th March 2025
Congratulations to the whole under 11 squad who qualified for the Final at Bolton School on 29th March!
Only two teams were able to qualify. We expected a tough competition, especially from last year’s winners of this event, Warwickshire who scored 56/60 in 2024. We had a nail-biting 10-10 draw with the hosts Leicestershire in round 1 and then a comfortable 15-5 victory against a combined Derbyshire and Shropshire team. The stage was set for the decisive last round. Our performance against Warwickshire, a creditable 7-13 defeat, was a big improvement on the 2-18 of 2024 and with Leicestershire dropping key points against Derbyshire/Shropshire, the final scores were:
1st – Warwickshire 45 (out of a possible 60)
2nd – Nottinghamshire 32
3rd – Leicestershire 27
4th – Derbyshire/Shropshire 16
Link to full results: 2025 EPSCA U11 Zone Midlands.
There were some notable performances:
Temidayo actually turned down two draws in the last round vs Warwickshire, one at the time of which he held only a slender advantage – on the face of it showing quite a bit of self-belief as well as his tenacity in each round. He was an example to the team of how to use the time well. He scored an incredible three wins from three matches.
A special mention to our youngest player, Elizabeth, who played two games and won them both.
Miheli played very well on the top board and Joshua was unbeaten on board two. Harry did well on board three, winning one and a draw.
Every one of our players contributed to our performance and put in a very worthy effort to qualify for the National Finals.
The finals will be held at Bolton School, Chorley New Road, Bolton, BL1 4PA on Saturday 29th March. Read more details about the finals.
A big thanks to all the children who played (in at least two cases winning games from being a rook down!) to the parents for transport, supervision and support and to all the organisers, especially Howard Wood for his book stall and arbiters/managers Alan Agnew, Paul Mottram, Alex Holowczak and Chris Lewis (whose Shropshire liveboards enabled us to follow the top four boards at a distance!)
~ Dai Bevan (Team Manager), Chris Spolton, John Swain and Tim Walker (coaches)