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KES Chess A Team 1968-1971 |
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Contents
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British Championships (and other congresses)
The earliest congresses KES players will have played in are the Sheffield Schools’ Congresses. Some then branched out to congresses outside Sheffield, and this led in time to participation in the British Championship, in age-limited championships.
The Sheffield Schools’ Congresses were presumably run by or on behalf of the Sheffield & District Chess Association. There was a succession of individuals promoting chess at individual level among Sheffield & District juniors, Paul Kington (see Earlier Generations), Pete Jeal (metallurgist at Samuel Fox Ltd) then Brian Jones (immigrant from Lancashire working in computing). They presumably held a specific S&DCA office of Secretary for Junior Chess or similar.
Paul was presumably organising Sheffield Schools’ Congresses in the earlier days.
Bury Junior Congress 1966 or1967
When Pete Jeal came along, he started taking budding juniors to congresses outside Sheffield. Thus, it came to pass that he took Norman Wilson of Abbeydale Grammar and me (Steve Mann) to a junior congress is Bury in the season1966-67. This entailed Norman and me bussing it out to the Samuel Fox factory in Stocksbridge, there to be picked up by Pete Jeal who drove us to his parents’ home in Reddish where we were housed and fed over the weekend.
The entrants were split according to age into two groups, Norman being out in the older group and I in the younger one (under 14?). Whilst the older group played, I believe, a normal Swiss event, the younger group operated on a system whereby having reported the result of a game you were immediately allocated another opponent. Thus, there were no set “rounds” and the faster you finished your games the more games you got to play. I won all my games and was the final winner.
KES Magazine of Spring 1967 reported, “Two players, the captain, R. I. Nicolson and S. J. Mann, have distinguished themselves, one by winning the Sheffield Schools Congress and the other by coming first in the Junior Divisions of the Sheffield and the Bury congresses. I. Cooper also came second in his division at Sheffield.”
British Championships 1969
The next stage was the British Under-Whatever Championships at Rhyll in 1969. The Sheffield contingent consisted of
Pete Jeal and the Under-18 and Under-16 boys stayed at accommodation in a large building with dormitories, perhaps a boarding school. The Dundee contingent was being housed in the same premises. The others listed had their own separate arrangement. For Brian Jones, the fortnight was also his honeymoon!
There was a daily bulletin including a selection of games from the previous round. The editor obviously spotted that as White this S J Mann character from Sheffield was playing an early f3 against any King’s Indian, Benoni, Nimzo-Indian or other such defence to 1. d4 and published a selection. Click on a link to play through the game on screen, using your browser’s “back” function to return to this page: Mann, Stephen J 1-0 Saunders, John C Mann, Stephen J 1-0 Dentith, James M Mann, Stephen J 0-1 Stean, Michael F
One of my f3 wins not included in the bulletin was my round-8 win over Adrian Millward, then of Leicester but later of Sheffield, where he assisted with Sheffield congresses. The reason this game was not included will have been the minor detail that for one brief moment Adrian could have won my queen in the middle of the board, something which Adrian fortunately did not spot!
Dundee players participating at the 1969 British championships in Rhyll, not all from the High School, were mother hen Nancy Elder (a creditable 3rd in the British Ladies Championship), Andrew J D Baruch (16-26= in the Under 18s), Christopher James Austin Jones (27-38= in Under 18s), Peter W Walsh (53-61= in Under 18s), Douglas Tudhope (16-24= alongside Steve Mann of KES and Steve Gough of High Storrs in the Under 16s), John A Ferguson (44-53= in Under 16s), Nancy’s daughter Christine Elder and also Miriam Little (8-13= in Girls Under 18s) and Susan Law (21-23= in Girls Under 18s).
As far as successes of Yorkshire juniors at the event are concerned, the 1969 British Girls’ Under-18 Championship was won by Gennine Fielding of Huddersfield. (This was not in 1970 as incorrectly stated in Huddersfield Chess Club’s history web page. Gennine finished 5-10= in 1970.) In a 1969-70 Woodhouse Cup match, Steve Mann beat Gennine while she was still Girl’s Under-18 Champion.
British Championships 1970
Steves Lorber and Mann, and Ralph went to the next British Championships, and Ralph performed impressively.
The venue was the recently built (1965) University of Warwick, where “Warwick” means “Warwickshire. The main campus, where the Championships were held, is technically in Coventry, though it’s some way out of the centre of Coventry, about halfway to Kenilworth, accessed from the main road, I recall, via the sinister-sounding Gibbet Lane.
Ralph and Steve M played in the Boys’ Under-18 while Steve L played in the Boys’ Under-16.
Ralph finished in 4th to 6th place out of 51 players, with 7½ out of 11, half a point behind John G Nicholson, Johann P Sommerville and Kevin J Wicker, all of whom were pupils at the London public school Dulwich College. The following group of 5 on 7 points included John Nunn, the future Grandmaster.
Whereas at Rhyll there was a daily bulletin which I procured, except for the final one to be mailed out after the event, At Coventry, sadly, I recall no such bulletin. I’ve not uncovered any of Ralph’s game scores – there are plenty for “R Bailey” but that is Richard Bailey who was a competitor in the British Championship proper.
Meanwhile, Steve M finished on an acceptable but not astounding 5½ points putting him in 22nd to 32nd= place alongside, incidentally, Douglas Tudhope of Dundee’s Sunday Times team and Jim Burnett, then of Doncaster and now of Bawtry, who I didn’t know then but do know now. (So many of those in the records of the past are people one didn’t know then but do know now!)
In the Under-16, Steve L finished 4th to 6th= out of a surprisingly small entry of 35, with 7 out of 11. However, if you discount the two future Grandmasters sharing 1st place on 9 out of 11, then he finished 2nd to 4th=.
This was evidently Steve L’s penultimate “British”. The next major chess congress he entered was in Islington. Indeed, he’s still working in Islington! The Islington Open of 1971, played 10th to 12th December amid various other sections of all sorts which extended the whole event to the 22nd of December. Steve finished with a score of 3 out of 6, which placed him 50th to 76th= out of 116. Steve’s only game from the event that I’ve uncovered is from round 1, when Steve played Richard F Lee who finished 12th to 28th on 4½ points. Click on a link to play through the game on screen, using your browser’s “back” function to return to this page: Lorber, Stephen J 0-1 Lee, Richard F
An enigmatic feature of Islington 1971 was that in other sections there were in one of four 7-player all-play-all events one “M Lodge” and also a “J Fernley”. Could they have been Mark Vincent Lodge of KES and Trevor Fernley of Abbeydale? “M Lodge” played also in the Amateur Championship (U190). Mark Vincent Lodge’s death in 1995 was registered in Islington, so maybe he’d been living there since 1971 and had invited Trevor Fernley to stay with him during the event!?
British Championships 1971
This was held in Blackpool, and Steve Lorber was there. He played in the Boys Under-18 Championship which played in the mornings. He may have looked round at the wallcharts and noticed nobody he knew from Sheffield listed there. In actual fact, Steve Mann had entered the 5-Day 2nd Week tournament which also played in the mornings, but he wallchart might not have been on display until the second week. So far as I know/recall, neither Steve L nor myself (Steve Mann) realised the other was at the event, but there are holes in my memory. (I can’t remember where I stayed, yet I remember walking round Blackpool. A third Sheffield player, playing in the British Blind Championship, was J. E. “Ted” Williams, of whose presence I was also oblivious, and Ted obviously didn’t see me!
A curious thing (if it was this congress) was that for some reason I was running short of cash, and borrowed some off former Sheffield University chess-player Dick Lemon who was playing in the Major Open which importantly played in the afternoons, meaning I could spot him as I looked round the afternoon events as they were in play. I remember that, afterwards, I sent him a cheque to his home in Kingston-on-Thames.
There were 54 participants in the Under-18. Jonathan Mestel won with 10½/11. He drew with none other than our Dundonian friend Douglas Tudhope! Douglas finished 3rd-4th= on 7½/11. Fellow Dundonian Andrew Baruch finished 8th-16th= on 6½/11. Further down the list, Steve L finished 22nd-31st= on 5½ out of 11. Thus, alas, Dundee beat KES all over again.
In the 5-Day 2nd Week “A” tournament (A and B presumably representing different strengths) Steve Mann came 2nd-4th= behind Trevor Thynne of Teignmouth (whose team I was in time to encounter when at Exeter University). I won some prize money, but obviously not enough. A slight swing in KES fortunes lay in the fact I’d finished ahead of P W Walsh of Dundee who beat Steve Mallaband in the Sunday Times semi-finals of 1969.
As ever, the only one of Steve L’s games I can find is the following loss. Click on a link to play through the game on screen, using your browser’s “back” function to return to this page:
British Championships 1972
The Sheffield contingent at the British Championships of 1972, held in Brighton (Brighton Pavillion, if I remember correctly) , consisted of Brian Jones in the Major Open (see under 1969 above), J. E. Vickery (who I was then unaware of then and must have been at Sheffield University and who I later knew as a Leeds player, also in the Major Open) and Steve Mann. I (Steve Mann) was playing in two 5-Day events, the Five Day 'A' First Week, finishing 2nd-5th= on 3/5, and the Five Day 'A' Second Week, finishing a disappointing 4th-7th= again on 3/5.
One evening, I went and sat in some gardens while waiting to watch something like British Championship adjournments starting in the evening. A chap not much older than myself came and sat next to me, which was a little disconcerting. Some sort of conversation developed and he asked me, as a sort of quiz question, who gave Adolf Hitler the job of German Reich Chancellor. I gave the correct answer: President Hindenburg. It became evident, as other figures appeared, that I’d chosen to sit where the local alcoholics gathered of an evening! The sad thing is that I recognised that chap who had first joined me as being a former KES school prefect. He’d presumably gone from Sheffield to university in Brighton, perhaps to study history of some sort, but had developed problems which drove him to drink. Demonstrating he remembered some history presumably helped to preserve some sort of self-esteem. Very sad.
That seems to be the end of KES A team in the British Championship congresses, however, . . . .
British Championships 1976
The British Under-16 Championship was shared by Sheffield’s Trevor Fernley and Peter J Sowray of Chiswick, both with 9 out of 11. Trevor was the Abbeydale player illegally fielded by KES B in the Sunday Times.
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