3rd spot still in sights for Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury Juniors kept hopes alive of securing third place in their division with a draw against Oswestry. Wins for Chris Lovejoy and Matthew Best and a draw for Francis Rooney mean that Shrewsbury Juniors retain 3rd place for the moment, although only one point above Oswestry, who still have a game in hand. The battle will now go down to the last matches, with the juniors facing Wellington B in two weeks. Oswestry B 2.5-2.5 Shrewsbury Juniors R Thompson 1-0 H Graham G Hampson 1-0 J Newey S Tullett 0-1 C Lovejoy G Ives 0.5-0.5 F Rooney R Farrall 0-1 M Best

Shropshire juniors ready for next stage of UK Chess Challenge

Eighteen Shropshire juniors qualified for the Megafinal stage of the UK Chess Challenge at a tournament organised by Shropshire Junior Chess Academy on Saturday 7 March. The young chess players will now compete in the regional Megafinal to be held in Hereford in May. The qualifiers are: Under 7 Greg Jones Under 10 Laura Newey Under 11 Ben Jones Under 12 Richard Heath Christian Hudson-Pearson Athar Mehmood Matthew Mellor Alex Dillon Under 13 Matthew Best Angelica Dean Under 14 Jonathan Newey Francis Rooney Luke West Under 15 Peter Mellor Under 16 Matthew Evans Joe Mellor Jamie Allan Under 17 Nathanael Paul The tournament was a closely-fought event with Jamie Allan and Athar Mehmood sharing first place in terms of points scored with Nathanael Paul in third place.

Another grading update

For those who like to keep an eye on their grades (and those of their opponents), the ECF boffins have made some furtehr adjustments to the 'New Grades' which are due to come into force next season. The main effect seems tobe a small drop in most junior grades. Please note these grades are not the official ones this year, but will be used as the basis of calculating next year's grade. If this all sounds far too confusing, forget it and just try and win as many games as possible in the remainder of the season! If you must find out more - here's the link - http://grading.bcfservices.org.uk/

Coddon B prove too strong for Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury Juniors went down 4-1 against division 3 leaders Coddon B on Friday. At one stage a number of the matches looked good for Shrewsbury and the result could have gone the other way, but it wasn't to be. A solitary win for Jonathan Newey was the only point. Shrewsbury Juniors 1-4 Coddon B H Graham 0-1 E Raby F Rooney 0-1 P Mellor C Lovejoy 0-1 A Pickles J Newey 1-0 C Paul M Best 0-1 N Paul

UK Chess Challenge Qualifying event

SAT 7 MARCH 2009 - 1pm to 5pm TRINITY SCHOOL, BUTTS LANE, FORD, SHROPSHIRE The UK Chess Challenge is the biggest junior tournament in the country and each year more than 70,000 children take part. The competition is open to all under 18s. Some schools run their own qualifying tournaments but for those who don’t have the chance to enter through their school (or who haven’t managed to qualify that way!), Shropshire Junior Chess Academy is holding a special qualifying tournament on Sat 7 March. There are lots of prizes available and the chance to qualify for the next stage of the competition which is a regional event, normally held in Hereford. And after that there are national finals held in Manchester. It is a great event and we will have lots of fun prizes at the qualifying day so no-one will go away empty-handed. Full details can be downloaded - here

Juniors still in the race - just

Shrewsbury Juniors' promotion hopes took a knock after they lost to Shifnal Telford D. The result leaves the juniors in third place but they need one of the top two to slip to have a hope of going up. Francis Rooney got the only win of the night for the Shrewsbury team while Henry Graham got another well-deserved draw on top board. Shifnal Telford D 3.5-1.5 Shrewsbury Juniors J Kenderdine 0.5-0.5 H Graham T Skidmore 1-0 C Lovejoy J Beddoes 0-1 F Rooney A Carr 1-0 M Best N Donaldson 1-0 K Lovejoy

Junior county match winners

Shropshire's Juniors had another close county match against Warwickshire. Although the match ended 7.5-4.5 in the visitor's favour, there was a chance of drawing the tie right up to the last few games. For the second match in a row, the juniors got the better of the top six boards. There were wins against higher-graded opponents for Athar Mehmod, Nathanael Paul, Francis Rooney and Luke West (the latter making his debut for the side) and Matthew Best drew. MATCH - Shropshire Junior U100 v Warwickshire

SECTION - U100

DATE - 7^th February 2009

VENUE - Trinity School, Ford, Shropshire

Board	Colour	Name Shropshre	ECF Code	Grade	Score	Name Warwickshire	ECF Code	Grade	Score
1	B	Peter Mellor	248946G	85	0	Malcolm Phipps	117082L	99	1
2	W	Athar Mehmood	264465E	78	1	Steven Bowen	263574E	97	0
3	B	Nathanael Paul	245834C	65	1	Medhi Al-Samir	270896G	95	0
4	W	Mark Richards	264468L	59	½	Richard Leaper	192092D	94	½
5	B	Huw Davenport	257511F	56	0	Paul Hardstaff	112088J	93	1
6	W	Francis Rooney	264469B	49	1	Peter Hodkinson	249822E	92	0
7	B	Jonathan Newey	267845H	49	0	John Green	273516H	92	1
8	W	Matthew Best	269317D	37	0	Ken Wise	126940K	88	1
9	B	Jamie Allen	273629K	35	0	Graham Gee	157194B	84	1
10	W	Joe Mellor	252231H	29	0	Pauline Woodward	152732A	84	1
11	B	Matthew Mellor	260562E	23	0	Shakeel Choudhury	269822F	57	1
12	W	Luke West	-	-	1	Harvey Watkins	273993J	51	0
		TOTAL			4½	TOTAL			7½