Wiltshire's under 14 girls chess team suffered the cruellest of defeats when they tied 12 all with the favourites Oxford, but missed out on a place in the English Counties Girls Team finals on a tie break.

It was the third year running that the Wiltshire players all from Swindon have had to be content with the runner-up spot, but this was the nearest they have come to winning the competition, hosted by Wiltshire at Headlands School, Swindon.

Their disappointment was all the greater in that they beat Oxford 5-4 over the board, but did less well than their rivals against the third placed team, Somerset.

Top scorer for Wiltshire was also the youngest member of the team, nine- year-old Shivani Joban-putra, of Liden, who won all three of her games on board four. Reserve Sarah Thomas, ten, of Wrough-ton, who stepped into the team after the first round, was also unbeaten.

n Swindon Juniors were out in force this weekend: Heather Burgess, 15, who captained the girls team last year, came second in the Under 18 section of the Surrey and South-East Counties Girls Chess Congress at Leatherhead.

A few miles away in Guildford, Swindon's under 13 international, Richard Webb, took first place in his graded section of the Guildford Junior Congress, and 11 year old Robbie Dams shared the runner-up spot, just half a point behind the three joint winners in the under 14s.

He was following up a second place the previous day, when he scored five out of six at the Warwickshire Open Congress in Coventry.