Essex 6 – 10 Yorkshire, 3 June 2000

All good things eventually come to an end, and the 29 match unbeaten run that the Essex U175s had put together since their loss at Hassocks in February 1997 was finally broken by an extremely strong Yorkshire team who must be favourites to take this year’s national title. [An inaccurate prediction - in the event Warwickshire won the final].  Essex were missing a number of their regular top order and simply found themselves outgunned on the day. After Paul Barclay had registered a quick draw, Yorkshire won four of the next five games to finish, with the only partial success for Essex coming when Tim Hebbes survived a period of acute time pressure to draw.  There was a brief Essex rally led by Fred Dorn, making a welcome return to side,whose Four Pawns Attack against the King’s Indian defence led rapidly to an advantageous ending which Fred nursed to a win.  When draws by Howard Grist and George McNally were followed by a win by Dave Pearse whose opponent never succeeded in castling, Essex had clawed back to 4 -6 but that was as close as it got.  Four games finishing in the space of three minutes gave Yorkshire 3 1/2 points and an unassailable lead, with only John White avoiding defeat.  With the match decided, Ivan Myall agreed a draw, but Peter Doye fought on and eventually secured victory in a rook and pawn ending.

Essex 11 – 5 Bedfordshire, 13 May 2011

The strength is depth of the Essex U175 squad was once again illustrated in this match, as despite contributing five players and the non-playing captain to the Open team that was in action at Syston, the home side held a substantial grading advantage in their quarter final againat Bedfordshire at Wanstead House, particularly in the lower order.  Nevertheless, the visitors put up a good fight, only just failing to hold Essex over the top eight boards, and can feel somewhat hard done by in terms of the Essex margin of victory.

Essex 10 – 6 Kent, 19 February 2000

With the SCCU championship already secured, Essex completed the competition in some style with a win against a Kent team that was to be confirmed as one of the other SCCU qualifiers for the National Stages as a result of events elsewhere.  The two point start enjoyed by Essex as a result of Kentish defaults was quickly extended as following a draw by Tim Hebbes in his first appearance for the team this season, John White won decisively.  Even better was to follow as Howard Grist marked his debut for the team to win in only 18 moves with the Black pieces and Trevor Coote justified his promotion to top board by winning as White.  After four further draws, Bill Saunders won as Black to wrap up the match just after 5.00.  The remaining games were all concluded quite quickly after this; Paul Williamson won convincingly but Kent managed to attain three victories to lend a touch of respectability to the scoreline.

Essex 9 – 7 Sussex, 5 February 2000

By winning this match, Essex not only retained the SCCU Championship with a match to spare but became the first County ever to take the Montague-Jones trophy, which has been competed for since 1925 when Somerset were the first winners, four seasons running.  Not a bad afternoon’s work, with the added bonus of extending the current unbeaten run to 27 matches and maintaining an impressive record at home – the last defeat for the U175s at Wanstead House was as long ago as 5th November 1994!

Surrey 6½ – 9½ Essex, 8 January 2000

When Surrey conceded two defaults early enough in the day for Colin Ramage and George McNally to avoid unnecessary journeys to Coulsdon, it might have been thought that this was going to be one match that the Essex U175s were going to win with a degree of comfort, particularly given the disparity in the strength of the two teams on paper.  However, many of the Essex players seemed to struggle to get going, possibly as a result of chess inactivity over the Christmas and New Year period, and Surrey rose to the occasion to give the champions an extremely close run for their money.

Kent 7 – 9 Essex, 11 December 1999

Essex went into this match looking to extend their long unbeaten run to 25 matches.  Kent away represented one of the toughest possible fixtures in which to try to reach this landmark, and the Essex plans were not helped by a flu epidemic which led to Roy Heppinstall withdrawing on the Thursday and Trevor Coote and Ian Hunnable pulling out on the morning of the match.  Able replacements were obtained at a few hours notice in Mark Weighell and Richard Weeber, but even so Kent had an advantage on paper when the team lists were exchanged.  The early play favoured the home team, and 3 hours into the match Essex found themselves 2 down following defeats for Robert Parker and Richard Weeber, with John White’s draw at this stage representing the only completed game from which Essex had obtained anything.

Sussex 7 – 9 Essex, 6 November 1999

The away match with Sussex tends to be one of the trickier fixtures for the Essex U175 team, and was the occasion for the side’s last defeat back in 1997.  With no fewer than eleven members of the squad unavailable for a variety of reasons (not all quite as convincing as Lawrence Trent’s participation in the World Youth Championships in Spain) there seemed a danger that the long unbeaten run might come to an end.  However, such is the strength in depth in Essex chess these days that the side which made the long journey to Hassocks matched Sussex in terms of average playing strength over the top 12 boards and clearly outgraded them over the last 4.  The whole team put in a first rate effort and were never behind in a match which in contrast to the previous fixture against Surrey was won more convincingly than the scoreline (9 – 7) suggests.

Essex 10 – 6 Surrey, 16 October 1999

Essex have tended to play a little unconvincingly in the opening U175 fixture in recent seasons – perhaps more of the team should take their captain’s advice and warm up by playing in the Braintree Congress.  With home advantage against Surrey, who had come off second best in the seven previous U175 matches between the Counties, and a substantial grading advantage on paper, this should have been a straightforward enough star for the defending champions.  Although the 10 – 6 winning margin that was achieved may sound comfortable, it was distinctly unflattering to a Surrey team that performed well on the day and gave Essex a much closer match than might have been expected.