Preston 2 v Poulton 1

The home team were missing Peter Jowett their regular board one and also had to bring in a late replacement for Hambel Willow who was down to play on board four.
To the casual observer Jim Sumner appeared to be doing quite well against the very strong Martin Mitchell, however the longer it went on and the position settled down Martin gained control of the game and won.
On board two Phil Taylor who was standing in as captain in the absence of the poorly Carl Tillotson played a timid opening against David Phillips and came under considerable pressure in the early middlegame, but fought back to eventually get equality in the endgame and a draw was agreed. It was a hard game in which we wondered if David could have forced things by playing a dangerous pawn push on the 'a' file. When he declined to do so I got more piece activity and was less worried.
On board four Hari Patsos started quite well and had a promising position against Paul Fearnhead, but sadly for Preston 2 things unravelled and Paul eventually had a wall of pawns charging down the board which could not be stopped from queening and he wrapped up the victory for Poulton,
Conor Reaney and Peter Garrett having seen that Poulton had already won the match agreed a draw in a level position, which though unbalanced, neither side could create winning chances.
So it was a deserved victory for a strong Poulton side who played very well on the night.

Congrats to Poulton. Apologies for mix-up Phil, Hambel was not scheduled to play it was Paul. However, thanks to Hari for stepping in at late notice, and thanks Phil for captaincy on the night and the match report!