|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
KES Chess A Team 1968-1971 |
||||||||
|
Contents
|
The B Team and Others
Dramatis personae of the second team included
Steve Bailey would have been strong enough for a high board, even board 1, in other schools. His mother ran a shop in Coal Aston which was in the nature of a dressmaker’s or similar. His subject was chemistry. He dropped out of the local chess scene after leaving school. The last time I saw him he was in a smart grey suite at the entrance to Sheffield Midland railway station, waiting to meet somebody arriving by train.
Peter W H Smith tended to drop the initial “H” for obvious reasons, W H Smith being a newsagent’s and stationery shop! The “h” may have stood for “Hesling”, that being his mother’s maiden name. (Ralph’s “W” stands for his mother’s maiden name “West”.) Peter Smith continued playing chess after leaving school, but specialised in correspondence chess and became an International Correspondence Chess Federation International Master. Somewhere along the line, he got “Dr.” prefixed to his name, presumably implying he’d achieved a PhD.
The apparent absence of memorable chess-players starting at KES in 1965 or 1966 means one would expect a gap in strength between on the one hand A-team players, Steve Bailey and perhaps Peter Smith, and on the other hand those B-team players starting after 1966 who would lack three years’ experience and improvement.
Of those younger B-team players, Andrew McCaig (half-brother of Rod Nicolson included in the Earlier Generations page) continued playing chess after leaving school, and became a member of Sheffield’s team in the Woodhouse Cup (Division 1 of the Yorkshire league). In particular, he was a member of the Sheffield team which won the Woodhouse Cup in 1974. The following is a photograph of some members of that winning team.
Back row: Andrew McCaig, Brian Jones, Paul Blackman, Steve Mann Front row: Mike Littlewood, Geoff Frost, Chris Williams (Geoff Frost is also ex KES and is mentioned on the Earlier Generations page.)
Andrew’s father, Malcolm McCaig, was born in Sheffield on 10/11/1911 and married Phyllis Nicolson in 1955 (as mentioned in Earlier Generations). He became a Sheffield & DCA official and died while still in office in 1978. Pete Charles of the S&DCA and myself visited Malcolm’s house (on Eastgrove Rd?) after his death to collect his S&DCA-related paperwork. Andrew was there to receive us, and that maybe the last time I saw Andrew. Andrew disappeared from the scene after leaving university, going on to greater things outside chess.
Barry Wardle continued playing chess after leaving school. He played for the Earl of Arundel chess club in Sheffield, and played, for instance, in the Intermediate section of the Sheffield Easter Congress of 1999, of which Steve Mann was one of the organisers. Barrie Wardle was born on 25/01/1957 in Sheffield, and he died in late 2005, aged 48.). Attempts to find information on the circumstances of his death have so far drawn a blank.
Philip R Burley popped up as A-team Captain in 1971-72, according to the school magazine, but was never thereafter noticeable in Sheffield chess outside KES.
Adrian Belton, Michael Marks (mentioned on Non-Chess Stuff page under “Marks Moves”) and Trevor Rhodes seemingly disappeared from Sheffield chess after leaving school.
Mark Lodge was seemingly in charge of team chess at KES after the A team had left. His last season as KES captain was 1970-71, being succeeded by P. R. Burley. After leaving school he formed the Sheffield Area Schools Chess Association in direct opposition to the S&DCA School League. This arguably had a wider, deleterious impact on inter-school team chess in Sheffield. He is another of the KES chess-players known to have died before the year 2000. Accordingly, there an extension to this webpage, which might seem a little bizarre, telling what it is possible to piece together about Mark Lodge’s life and its origins in Sheffield’s Irish Roman Catholic community, which can be seen in part as an obituary. (Click on following link.)
|
