The Annual Presentation Evening / Lightning Tournament

This event took place on Thursday June 8th at The SparrowHawk Hotel in Burnley. There were 30 players attending.
 
In the absence of both The President (Jack Whitfield) and The Chairman (Dennis Otter), this left the General Secretary (Peter Dickinson) with the task of presenting the various trophies.

The thirty players formed 8 teams to contest the Lightning competition which was run by Andrew Clarkson (on the tape) and Peter Dickinson (doing the pairings).
Burnley won the event after a close, nail-biting even, finish when Howard Hughes held on doggedly in a bishop and pawn ending for a draw against Scott Riley.

Scores were as follows:
Burnley (H. Hughes, M. Conroy, S. Whitehead, D. Innes)  12
Hawks A (S. Riley, A. Clarkson, C. Edwards, A. Saulle)  11
Gt Harwood (M. Hamer, P. Dickinson, A. Hargreaves, Y. Dickinson)  10.5
Crusaders (M. Dukes, M. Horne, F. Tanner, L. Haworth)  7
Hawks B (J. Hollingworth, P. Dickinson, J. Marchant)  6.5
Clitheroe (G. Glover, E. Mansfield, B. Brown)  6
Blackburn (C. Dickson, M. Tibbett, S. Haddock, J. Holt)  5.5
Rawtenstall (P. English, T. Sullivan,  B. Burrows, O. Judge)  4.5

There were only four rounds instead of the usual five after using a new lightning tape which, dispensing with the quick 5 second start and finish bursts, using only 10 seconds a move took slightly longer than expected to complete each round.
Nevertheless everyone seemed to quite enjoy the format and hopefully all had a good time and will be back next year....