At the beginning of the 2024/2025 season, newly promoted Luton A team would take the cream of Luton Chess Club players into Division 1 of the Bedfordshire Chess League. At the same time, Luton B team captain Dixon Jones was singular in his aspiration to follow his success in the previous season, and promote a second club team from Division 2. The raison d'etre of entering a third C team was to give players who were new or returning to serious chess the opportunity to play in the league. To this end, the Luton C team captain Des Welton, was lead anyone in the main chess club for a place on the team, often forgoing his own ambitions to be on his squad.
New to league chess from the club were the two impressive juniors, Qasim Zaidi and Riyaan Shahzad. Also two new adult players, the equally impressive Milen Stanchev, and Andrew Pye. Joining the team after many years of absence were two strong players, Tim Hayden and Richard Lewis. Returning for a second season of league chess were was Daven Patel and Sergiu Pop. And for continuity, the established Humayun Mirza, Peter Montgomery and Des Welton.
When the season began, Luton C lost two of their first three matches by a close 2-3 margin and took a win against Bedford C. Not bad for a new team developed from scratch. But it was a winter of discontent as Luton C took a whitewash loss against the eventual division winners, then a 1-4 loss, then another two whitewash losses. After this, the team took another 1.5-3.5 hit against Bedford E, but the matches were closer over-the-board than the results indicated. The team was improving, especially on the lower boards, and the next match was a draw. Another crushing defeat from the unbeaten Milton Keynes B followed but after that, the team seemed to gain momentum. A draw that could have been a win, then win and finally a 4-1 win against Bedford C (Though to be fair, we did have one of Luton's strongest ever players return on board 1, Damon D'Cruz, on our side as a talisman).
In conclusion, the team was able to give the opportunity and draw upon the skills of 12 players in the league this season, and finished on a high. Which was nice. On behalf of the team Captain Des Welton, well done and thank you all who played for Luton C team.
To end this post, please enjoy the board 3 game of the last Luton C team match of the season below.