It’s been a surreal experience over the past few weeks as the Bedford C team has sat proudly at the top of the league table – a position to which I am, in my tenure as captain, still grossly unaccustomed. We headed up to Milton Keynes on Thursday, for what on paper was probably our toughest assignment yet – but as often seems to have been this season, the home team were fielding a couple of newcomers on the bottom boards which added an element of unpredictability to the occasion.
| Board | Rating | Milton Keynes D | V | Bedford C | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1715 | Evans, Thomas | 0 – 1 | Shields, Callum T | 1747 |
| 2 | 1710 | Watson, Dominic | ½ – ½ | Potts, Alexander | 1683 |
| 3 | 1614 | Keane, Richard C | 0 – 1 | Darmendra, Shivadharshan | 0000 |
| 4 | 1656 | Burse, Rikin | 0 – 1 | Walker, Nigel B | 1446 |
| 5 | 1469 | Mabogunje, Olajide | 1 – 0 | Hylton, Cedric | 1300 |
| Total | 8164 | 1½ – 3½ | 6176 |
Callum finished quickly on board 1. What looked like a boring London system quickly exploded into life, as Thomas perhaps wasted one move too many deciding where to place his bishops. Callum wasted no opportunity in using the free time to launch a kingside attack. Unable to get his king safe, Thomas blundered on move 17 and allowed a forced mate, but in truth the position was probably already lost anyway. The engine credits Callum with a 96% accuracy rating, which is grandmaster stuff!
My game on board 2 was the polar opposite of Callum’s. Opting to go into a sharp Scandinavian defence, I reached a position with a very complicated battle for central control and my brain (and maybe Dominic’s too!) was starting to hurt. But then the tension was released, an enormous amount of wood was traded off pretty quickly, and when the dust settled we’d reached a lifeless endgame, meaning for the second week running it finished all square in the battle of the captains. Still, half a point against the infamous slayer of Steve Ledger isn’t a bad result!
I didn’t see much of Cedric’s opening and middlegame, and by the time my game had finished and I could give the other boards more attention, his battle on board 5 had already reached an endgame where he was very passive against a pawn one square from promotion, but the opposite-coloured bishops perhaps gave him drawing changes. However, so tied down was he that Olajide had all the time in the world to march his king up the board, and then prettily sac the exchange to force the pawn’s promotion. Cedric doggedly played on until checkmate but it was never in doubt, and the match was back to level.
Nigel, conversely, had got into an extremely dominant position on board 4. They’d castled on opposite sides, and Rikin’s king had been thoroughly exposed while Nigel’s was still safe as houses. Nigel made it a stressful watch as his conversion wasn’t the cleanest, but his advantage was of the sort that didn’t require laser-accurate play, and in the end his passed pawns bulldozed their way through, prompting Rikin’s resignation.
Which meant that Shiva’s position on board 3 would decide the match. And it really was a wild position, with neither player’s king looking particularly secure. Although in theory Shiva only needed a draw, this game was never going to end that way – someone was going to get knocked out. With many of his pieces tied down to the defence of his own king, Shiva offered a knight to try and unleash his other forces. Richard went into a long think – he must have concluded that the sacrifice was a sound one, because he turned the material down… and instead blundered straight into a mate in one, tragically denying the game (and the match) a beautiful finish. But we don’t care, we’ll take the wins however they come!
Which left the final score 3.5 – 1.5 in Bedford’s favour, in a match where I’d had us pegged as moderate underdogs; and four wins from four across the season. Honestly, I’m getting dizzy just looking at that league table; surely we won’t still be there come the end of April, but we’ll enjoy it while it lasts!
Alex Potts, 14th November 2025