2015/16 Season

Captain’s (B) Team Report

This season was the first for quite a while in which the club entered a B team. While the A team concentrated on successfully continuing the sequence of back to back promotions the B team's main aim was to provide opportunities for competitive games for those who might not play that often in the A team. With this in mind a total of thirteen different players played for the B team over the course of the season. Of these five never played for the A team all season and two others only played once, so I would say that the B team fulfilled its primary objective.

The second aim of the team was to avoid relegation and it also succeeded in this, but in the most dramatic way possible. After all the teams in the division had played their sixteen fixtures Darnall and Handsworth B lay joint 7th, tied with Ecclesall D. This meant that these two teams had to have a play off to decide which team would join 9th place Barnsley C in relegation to the 5th division. This play off took place on the 1st of June and had its own share of drama. With 5 of the games completed the result depended upon how the last game on board one finished. With only a few minutes remaining on both players' clocks Danny Dawson turned a poor position into a winning one and then went on to win on time. The B team thus avoided relegation and can look forward to another season in Division four.

Danny Dawson was clear choice for player of the season. He was the only player from our team to play in sixteen games, and only one of six players in the whole division to do so. He also won more individual points than anyone else with ten points won and only two defeats from sixteen games. Many of his games were against players with a higher rating too, with a draw against Henry Withington (rated 150 at the time) probably his most noteworthy result.

However, it was definitely a team effort with five players playing twelve, or more, games. The best team result was probably the away game versus Barnsley C which we won 5½ to ½.