Arkell turns out for the leaders in Nick of time

Nick Arkell, the brother of Grandmaster Keith Arkell, was nominated as one of Newport’s team at the start of the season, but up to last week had played in no league matches at all, leaving the team in jeopardy of breaking a newly-introduced rule which says nominated players must play at least three times during the season.

The rule is designed to stop teams nominating players who never actually play and are essentially phantoms, which would give teams much greater flexibility in the way they field the rest of their squad.

With just three league fixtures to the end of the season, had Arkell not turned out for the match against Shrewsbury, then Newport would have been deducted a penalty point. They avoided that fate, and will need to field him for all their remaining matches as they face a deduction for each Arkell no-show there may now be.

Newport ran out 4-1 winners – hardly surprising with a line-up of International Master Lawrence Cooper on top board and then Nick Rutter, Nick Arkell, Nat Paul, and Ian Jamieson.

However, Shrewsbury’s Peter Kitchen reports: “Bizarrely, it was probably one of our best team performances of the season. At 10.20, the score was still 0-0.

“We played really well. Jim Wilkinson was an exchange up against Ian Jamieson, Francis Best was a pawn up against Nick Rutter and Mark Smith had a piece for three pawns again Nat Paul.”

Kitchen also reports on latest action in the Four Nations Chess League.

“I captained Celtic Tigers II at Daventry in 4NCL division Four South,” he added.

“It’s the same division as Shropshire II and Shropshire III. My team is very close in the table to Shropshire 2 in the pack just outside the promotion places. On the Saturday night we feared we may end up drawing each other the following day – happily that didn’t come to pass.

“I outgraded both of my opponents and got a win and a draw. On the Saturday I held a difficult ending to draw a 52-move game lasting five hours as black against Daniel Finn, graded 148, which helped secure the team a 3-3 draw against Sussex Martlets III. On the Sunday I beat Imogen Dicen with the white pieces – she played to mate, so this one took four and a quarter hours and 84 moves. That put the team 3-1 up but we ended up drawing again, this time against Warwickshire Select II.

“So that was nine and a quarter hours and 134 moves over the two days. Draining!”