KES Chess A Team 1968-1971

Contents Introduction Peter Edwards The A Team > Chess Club > Sheffield Schools’ League > Sunday Times > Correspondence Chess > British Championships > Non-Chess Stuff Earlier Generations The B Team and Others Other Schools

Chess Club The school chess club is the vehicle by which aspiring chess-players are brought together.  The club met after school on Fridays.  That was handy for those who were members of the YMCA Chess Club, as that club met also on Fridays, at the YMCA premises on Broomhall Road, down from the school via Park Lane. The Main Masters involved with the chess club was Mr. Gordon Young “Fanny” Adam.  Amongst other things he taught Russian, which he had learnt somewhere unexpected, Turkey or somewhere equality improbable.  He’d originally arrived at the school to teach French in September 1959, having previously been at Bablake School, Coventry.  Besides overseeing the chess club, he allowed both A and B chess-team members to practice chess over his desk during the dinner hour.  Those involved were all allowed to go on the third of the three lunch sittings, which of course meant the possibility of “seconds”!  Ralph has commented, “We might have interpreted ‘practice’ rather liberally.”  To this I’d say that all sorts of apparently frivolous activity are good “practice” in my opinion.  Indeed, I’ve always held the view that our lunchtime activities were fruitful, though not all.  These lunchtime sessions were where a “Marks Move” as I call it was frequently seen.  (See Non-Chess page.) “ Another master showing an interest in the chess club in earlier times was Mr. R. A. Braunholtz, M.A., Oxon, who taught as KES from September 1961 to July 1968.  I seem to remember RAB turning up at one of KES’s Sunday Times Matches, presumably v King Edward’s Birmingham, so maybe he left KES for KE Birmingham.  In one lesson where Steve Mann was present, a boy asked RAB if he was German.  RAB was not impressed by this.  I forget what he said in reply, but his posh Oxford-like accent suggested he had been born in England! Later on, Alan K Sutton, born 20/03/1945, joined the staff at KES and sometimes showed his face at the chess club, and in time took over the chess club.  In relatively recent years, he played in the Sheffield league for Stannington then Hillsborough after changes of venue and name of the club. One vague memory of the chess club that I (Steve Mann) have is of playing the Black side of some routine king’s pawn opening against Steve Mallaband.  I think I lost.  I was stuck by the way Black was very much the “second player” and this led to me taking up Alekhine’s Defence (or Attack!): 1. e4 Nf6. An amusing memory of the chess club is of looking at a game between two younger players, and being asked by Adrian Belton, the one who had an utterly lost position, “How do I get out of this?”.  When I asked how he thought I could possibly save his position for him, he replied, “I thought you were magic!”  Sadly, not so. Going Home Sometimes a group of us went home as a group, probably only of four of us, on a tour of the different places we severally lived.  This might have been after a club night rather that a match night.  The group went down from KES to Ecclesall Road, turned towards Hunter’s Bar but turned off left onto Hickmott Road where was situated a Chinese-run “chippy” called Andrews.  Thence the group went to Hunter’s Bar and up Ecclesall Road to the Banner Cross area.  On reaching the top of Millhouses Lane, Steve L would continue onward along Ecclesall Road South to the vicinity of B. H. Wood’s former home (and his own).  Also at this point Ralph would go down to his home on Millhouses Lane.  On one occasion, Ralph invited us into his home, perhaps knowing his parents would be out, and played Beethoven’s piano Sonata No. 14 (the “Moonlight Sonata”) to entertain the two visitors.  Leaving both Steve L and Ralph behind left the two Steves M stranded in the middle of (to us) nowhere.  One way or another, probably initially down Woodholm Road, we ended up on Bannerdale Road whence the climb up Brincliffe Edge and neatly to the top of Oak Hill Road where Steve Mall lived on the lefthand side going down.  Thence it was a relatively short walk for Steve Mann to wend his way home to Kenbourne Grove, passing en route the former home of B. H. Wood’s grandfather, George Wood, at 3 Moncrieffe Road. How often this grand tour took place is uncertain, but Ralph has commented, “I do remember long chats on the way home with you and Steve L, after evening club nights. ” An alternative route whereby the Steves M once got home appears on the Non-Chess Stuff page.