Bobby Gow 21

Bobby Gow 21

15 years of hurt, or at least a bit of embarrassment, ended on Monday when we finally won back the Bobby Gow Memorial Trophy we hadn't won outright since 2011, with a thrilling 10½-7½ win over our title-holder buds from Castlehill Chess Club Dundee.

An 18 board match is extraordinary in these times, and the regular high numbers for the Dundee leg reflect the great support from Castlehill, whose members always show up for it. We're working on returning the favour!

We had been assured we'd at least be returning the musical background Castlehill provided with the Abba tribute last year, but the promised Scottish/Bagpipe accompaniment from the choir practice failed to materialise. Can't have everything. 

In the match, our new brood certainly made a difference, as the 3½ points gathered by the eight debutants proved vital. Traditionally we win well on the top boards and lose pretty much everything after that! We continued with the former, gaining an unbeaten 5½ from the top seven boards, but this time we held up over the rest of the field. It came down to us needing just a half from the last three games, then we promptly lost! But a battling Sven clinched the draw from Alasdair, leaving David to polish the result with a win in the last game.

Having really failed to even make a contest of it in recent years, we were glad to get back to the Ryder-Cup style excitement of olden days, and obviously delighted to regain the trophy. A great meeting of the friendly rival neighbours as ever. Certainly Bobby would be highly chuffed of the sporting battles held in his name 🤗