Minor Counties Semi-Final, Sutton, 22nd May 1993
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Was this the best Bedfordshire county match result?
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Due to football division 2 playoffs and major roadworks around Heathrow, there were major holdups on the route to the match.
The Surrey captain was kind enough to delay the start of the match but after 30 minutes the clocks had to be started or the
room booking would have run out before completing the match. Unfortunately, only 4 Bedfordshire players were present and had
to guess which boards they were playing on. Howard Ingham was the last player to arrive 55 minutes after the original start time.
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The task facing Bedfordshire was considerable, behind on the clock and outgraded by an average 187 to 176. (which would have
been even worse if Surrey hadn’t needed a last minute reserve on board 12)
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Once the match started, everything went in our favour, Bedfordshire building up a healthy lead and keeping it throughout.
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The average grading difference was 12 points per board. This may not sound very much but over 16 boards it should translate to
a score of 10-6 in favour of the higher graded team. To win by 9.5-6.5, almost reversing the predicted score, is a considerable
achievement. To achieve this, the team performed at an average grade of 196, 20 points higher than their published grade.
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