This year’s West Wales League kicked off as usual with the annual Lightning Tournament at Morriston, on Monday 2nd September. I think I owe members a sincere apology as at least 3 of the emails sent to club secretaries never arrived. So sorry if anyone who wanted to play was never informed. One stray email was definitely my own fault, as I got the address of my own club sec. wrong! Quite what happened to the others I am mystified. Just in for reference my email is manselton@heraclitean.co.uk

In the end, there were 18 entrants. 15 from Morriston and 3 Castell Nedd. About 4:30 p.m. I found my laptop, from which the little buzzer program is run, would not boot. I managed to quickly cobble together a script on my phone and proved to myself it would run through the speakers. We just had to pray no one would phone during the tournament. They didn’t! Phew. But I still forgot in increase the Screen-Timeout and 2 minutes after kick-off I was buying a drink. (Silence. Oh, dear.)

Ian Eustis did his usual sterling service writing the player cards and making the draw. Brilliant. With a 3 second foghorn and 9 seconds silence we managed to squeeze in 5 rounds for the whole tournament. The result was a 4-way tie.

1st equal with 4 / 5 Ian Jones Peter Bevan Duncan William Andrew Gibbons

3 / 5 Adam Musson Bob Moore Sam Brown

2.5 / 5 Aadvik Ram (Castell Nedd - Best Junior ) Les Philpin Roger Jenkins Paul Bevan Dan Attrill John Ward

2 / 5 Bobby Taylor 2/5 James Harford 2/5

1 / 5 Aarush Ram (Castell Nedd) Casey Allen (Castell Nedd, Rhondda) Tony Goodchild

All three CN players did well. The young brothers Aadvik and Aarush Ram deserve special mention as they both lived up to their names. (Unique and First Ray of Sun, I believe.) As does Casey Allen, grandson of the stewardess of the Morriston RFC.

We managed to squeeze in 5 rounds. It is always a slow start as Ian has to write 18 cards and make the draw before it can begin. Early entry would be nice but the chaos at the start adds to the fun. The rules have to be drastic in Lightning and it gives joy and amusement to capture someone's King when they leave it en prise. Something you cannot do any other time.