Neil Williams Millennium Advanced
Heaton Park 26th/27th April, 2014
The 16 strongest players in the Federation (well bar two) ignored the weather forecast and attended this year’s Neil Williams at Heaton Park. The players were split into two blocks to enable both “8’s” to enjoy seven rounds of ‘all play all’ over the two days with the dividing line between the blocks being either a positive or negative handicap card.
The forecast was again wrong with not a drop of rain falling during daylight so play was un-interrupted but it still didn’t stop some games dragging on into darkness on the Saturday evening….. Some people just don’t care about the manager’s social life!
Thanks must go to Bury Club for again generously hosting the event and for supplying a huge catering team – we even got ‘starters’ before the Sunday meal (I do hope it’s not the last hurrah for this venue).
All competitors stated that they had enjoyed the weekend and much fun was had over the entire weekend but particularly at the close when the manager tried to announce the winners in each block without taking into account the results from the last round….total incompetent!
Winner of the Woodlands Trophy for ‘B’ level; Retained by Robert Essler with 6/7 over Jerry Guest who also had 6/7 but his loss was against Robert. Jerry however has now played 750 different opponents, 633 of them being wins!
As Paul then tried to award the Neil Williams Cup to Colin Irwin, howls of barracking and laughter ensured at his expense, as more and more players claimed they also had achieved 4/7 and they should get it instead. Back to the computer for the manager to check and re-check the final calculations until it was certain…Colin had indeed been victorious (on who beat who)! – that’s his story and he’s sticking to it….
