The recent flooding left quite a bit of Rotherham town centre underwater. The River Don surpassed the previous record height set in 2007. Sadly our home venue, the Bridge Inn, sustained some damage and will have to close for a while.

We went out of the Richardson Cup this week after being beaten 1½–4½ by Ecclesall on Wednesday. Our gutsy rearguard action wasn't quite enough to hold off the mighty Sheffield chessers, who brought a pretty strong side to the match.

Although our Cup dreams are dead for this year, there's still a chance for silverware in the Europa League of Sheffield chess, the Richardson Plate—we'll face Aughton four weeks hence.

Fixtures are out for the 2019/20 season!

There are a couple of tournaments coming up in the local area:

• Darnall and Handsworth club host their annual rapidplay event next Saturday (31 August) - info here
• Barnby Dun's 15-minute quickplay tourney is on Wednesday 4th September at 7.15pm

This year's Summer League is almost at an end, with the A team's valiant defeat at Worksop last night marking the last Rotherham fixture of the season.

The 2019 edition has been a pretty successful one for us. Rotherham B won Division 3 without losing a match, dropping only 5 game points along the way. The A team managed a comfortable mid-table finish in Division 2.

We're now looking forward to the 2019/20 winter season. Fixtures are set to be announced in September.