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KES Chess A Team 1968-1971 |
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Contents
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Sunday Times
The Sunday Times schools’ team competition was run initially in a zonal stage, then an interzonal stage, then the central semi-finals, final and 3rd-place play-off. The geographically based zonal stage always but Ecclesfield Grammar School in the same zonal as KES, and as Ecclesfield had a very respectable team I felt a bit sorry for them having always to be knocked out by KES.
Season 1963-64
According to KES Magazine, the first time KES entered the Sunday Times was 1963-64 under the captaincy of Paul Kington. “After four victories the team was ultimately defeated in the zone final by the Bemrose School, Derby, who were recent runners-up in this competition. Nevertheless it was an achievement for the team to reach the last thirty-two of this tournament,” said the magazine, going on to say, “The team has consisted of Kington, Frost, Willner, R. Nicolson, Middleton and Bailey [probably S. G. Bailey or W. H. Bailey, but not R. W. Bailey or S. R. Bailey], with Hempshall as reserve.” Messrs. Kington, Frost and Nicolson get mention on the “Earlier Generations” page. Willner, Middleton, Bailey and Hempshall seem not to have registered prominently if at all on the subsequent broader Sheffield chess scene and where quite probably scattered to pastures new with university and employment. Precise match details were given as Dronfield G.S. - Won 5½-½ Chesterfield (W. Rhodes Secondary)-Won 5½-½ Ecclesfield G.S.-Drawn 3-3 but won on age handicap King's School, Pontefract-Won 4-2 Bemrose School, Derby-Lost 1-5
Season 1968-69
The first time the new-generation KES entered the Sunday Times was in the season 1968-69.
Exactly who we played first hasn’t been identified yet for certain, though it might well have been Ecclesfield and/or another local team. Chess magazine lists Round 2 and Round 3 headline results, those for KES being Round 2 KES 4-2 Magdalen College School Round 3 KES 4-2 Hampton Grammar
Recollections of the Magdalen College trip. On this occasion we were driven there in a minibus by Steve Mallaband’s father. The team was housed overnight in various houses. Steve Mann and another, probably Steve Mallaband, were put up and fed in the headmaster’s house. Mrs. Headmaster served up Bakewell Tart for which she apologised as we obviously ate lots of it back in Sheffield! Steve Lorber remembers “staying in some lovely house there with rose trellises.” I myself remember noticing the much-advanced season with so much in bloom while the glaciers, so to speak, had not yet retreated back in Sheffield.
That’s evidently how they got through to the semi-finals etc in London, held on 25th and 26th of July at the St. Ermin’s Hotel, Caxton Street, London. Players were accommodated at the hotel for the two days, at the expense of course of the Sunday Times newspaper. The weekend’s schedule included the semi-finals and some entertainment, and culminated with the final and 3rd-place play-off.
In the following results the numbers in parentheses are the age group relevant to the age handicapping system, 1 being the oldest and 3 the youngest.
In the semi-finals, KES played the private school properly called High School of Dundee. The two semi-final match results were as follows:
Dundee’s board 5 was a younger brother of their board 2. Dundee won on age handicap.
@ board 1 was adjudicated as a win for Birmingham. Birmingham won on age handicap.
When it came to the entertainment, this proved to be going to a cinema to see the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with I think many thought a little childish for us!
A curious incident during the weekend was when Steve Mann and Steve L were in a lift going down for the evening meal and the lift stopped between floors. There was an elderly lady convinced she’d die of suffocation, her daughter who tried to reassure her, and last but not least an American who declared he was going sue the ”Goddam” hotel for everything he could get. In time, the lift was lowered to a floor level, and we disembarked and got a belated meal. I remember being in the lift and the goings on therein, and Steve also remembers being in the lift, though Steve seems to remember Leonard Barden being in the lift and, not me!
It turned out that some of the KES players and some of the Dundee players could play bridge, and so, later on, into the late evening, there was a KES v Dundee bridge session.
In the final, played on day two, Dundee played King Edward’s Birmingham, who KES were to encounter in a later year’s inter-zonal stage. On board 3, Andrew Baruch reportedly missed a number of wins and agreed a draw in a position which he was still winning. The top two boards had to be adjudicated. Normally, adjudications were done there and then to give a final result on the day. The top-board, Chris Jones versus Chris Shepherd was adjudicated, as normal, on the spot by C.H.O'D. Alexander and Bernard Cafferty, giving a win to Chris Jones. That must have been a relatively clear-cut decision. Board 2’s position must have been trickier, as C H O’D Alexander apparently declined to adjudicate it since as a former pupil of KES Birmingham he would be biased. So, the adjudication was afterwards sent to Harry Golombek, who eventually awarded a win to Birmingham.
The board one result gratifying meant that I (Steve Mann) had drawn with a player who had beaten Chris C W Shepherd who was, years later, long-resident in Sheffield and was much stronger than I, yet never managed to beat me! CCWS once said to me, “You seem to save your best chess for me!” The reality is I could read him like a book and knew what move he’s going to play before he did! Chris died on 14/09/2025 aged 74 from abdominal cancer. See obituary on S&DCA website here.
The final resulted as follows:
@ Board 1 was
adjudicated on the spot, Dundee won on age handicap.
Meanwhile, the play-off for third place resulted as follows:
* Chess reported Steve Mall on board 2 and Ralph on board 3, but Ralph assures me, “in fact Steve Mallaband and I by prior agreement swapped boards after the semi against Dundee. I was on 2 for the play-off; he was on 3. My game on 2 was adjudicated a draw by C H O’D Alexander in person.” Ralph has now found the scoresheet of his game, and though he does not note the board number, his opponent was indeed young Mr. Price. To play through the game on screen, click on the following link (using browser’s “back” function to return to this page: Ralph West Bailey ½-½ Howard J Price or you can see the scoresheet itself here (noting 26.Q-B4 should read 26. Q-QB4)
The bulk of the match result details were retrieved from the copy of Chess magazine of August 1969, courtesy of Brian Stephenson of Sheffield, who houses the magazine part of the British Chess Problem society’s library. It is also backed up by Chess Scotland’s website at https://www.chessscotland.com/documents/history/sundaytimesschools.htm, where there is a Dundee team photograph which lacks all the players’ name, but I can add that the small lad 4th from the left on the back row is “Wee Dougie Tudhope” as I think of him.
Steve Mann’s Dundee opponent, Christopher James Austin Jones, was born on 6th April 1952 at Newport-on-Tay, Scotland, and left Dundee Grammar for Corpus Christi College, Oxford, eventually practising as a solicitor from 1980 to 1997 and is now resident in Bristol. He is “big” in the abstruse world of chess problems, in particular helpmates. The board 1 game started 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Be7 which was a fashionable offbeat variation for Black at the time.
Andrew Baruch, years later, turned up in Sheffield captaining the Warwickshire county team.
Douglas Tudhope’s name was pronounced “Scottishly” with the “Tu“ as in the French pronoun. Ralph learnt that Douglas had once lived on Harley Street in Sheffield, which seemed unlikely! Douglas was born in Dundee in 1954. However, the Dundee Courier of 26/05/1959 reported, as part of a larger article about Douglas’s father’s ongoing activities, ““A lecturer for the past 5 years in therapeutics at Sheffield University, Dr. Tudhope graduated B.Sc. and M.B, ChB. at St Andrews University and gained his M.D. last year.” So, from the whole article we conclude Douglas had in fact lived in Sheffield roughly from June 1954 (or maybe mother and baby joined the father in Sheffield a little later) to July 1959.
Nancy Elder was in the shadows chaperoning the Dundee contingent. She was a teacher at the school who promoted chess there as well as among juniors in Dundee generally. She was a multiple Scottish Ladies’ Champion and a strong contender in the British Ladies Championship.
Regarding the Croydon team, Yorkshire players should not confuse Croydon’s “M P Townsend” with M Paul Townsend of York who was still at junior school at this time.
Ralph’s Croydon opponent won the Under-16 section of the London Junior Chess Championships in 1967.
Season 1969-70
By the time we played King Edward’s Birmingham, Chris Shephard had left and on board one I had White against a player totally unknown to me, a certain Anthony John Miles. The aforementioned Chris Shephard claims to have been the first person to select Tony Miles to play in a chess team, that being an internal inter-house match. The opening was 1. d4 f5 2. g4. Miles was obviously thrown off balance by this variation. He chewed his fingernails like mad. However, he eventually pulled through and won. However, KES won the match, which is all that mattered.
Miles went on to attend Sheffield University, playing for them in the Sheffield league. You might think he’d score 100%, but he didn’t. Against Brian Jones, Miles fell for the fiddle whereby Brian could chase Miles’s king with his queen, even putting his queen right up against Miles’s king because Miles capturing the queen would leave a stalemate position. Miles of course ceased his university studies to become a professional chess-player, late receiving an honorary MA from Sheffield University.
Season(s) Unclear
KES played Manchester Grammar B team, in Manchester, while in the same room Manchester Grammar A team was playing a match, perhaps in 1970. This meant we were vaguely acquainted with the Manchester A team who had a certain Jonathan Mestel on board 2 (!) below P A Linnell.
There was a KES Team in the Inter-zonal stage of the Sunday Times in 1971. It appears the B team had earlier beaten the A team in the zonal stage. This may have been the occasion when Mark lodge as captain of a KES B team kidnapped Steve Bailey, who on that occasion was playing in the A team, by picking him up from his home in Coal Aston and then driving round and round claiming to be lost. The A team would thereby lose by default a game they’d be expected to win, whereas the A team would thereby lose by default a game they’d be expected to lose anyway. That could enable the B Team to win on age handicap.
Thus, it came to pass that Manchester Grammar A team played a KES team captained by Mark Lodge, at KES. Members of the A team which had earlier played in Manchester were present and noted MVL was falsifying the ages of his players, the point being that there was an age handicap system whereby a bunch of sixth-formers would need to beat a very young team by a large game-point margin. In the interests of fair play and in a spirit of friendship towards the Manchester players, the KES A team players advised Manchester of the dodgy dealing being enacted, and Manchester won. Andrew McCaig’s comments below nail this match as played in 1971.
The following photograph has been “borrowed” from the Old Edwardians website. It had been furnished by Andrew McCaig and the appended comments on that website will have been supplied by Andrew, whose half-brother Don Nicolson (brother of Rod) was webmaster of the OE site. I’m sure Andrew would not mind me using it.
Back Row: Michael Marks, Steve Bailey, Trevor Fernley (Abbeydale School!), Mark Lodge, Mr. Bell. Front Row: Peter Smith, Adrian Belton, Trevor Rhodes, Andrew McCaig (KES 68-75)
Andrew’s comment: “The picture was taken shortly before our ill-fated match against Manchester Grammar School in 1971. We lost the match 2.5 - 3.5. Manchester Grammar were fielding Jonathan Mestel - who went on to become a chess grandmaster The team had won the regional Sunday Times tournament [means zonal stage, SJM].
Note yet another dubious act by Mark Lodge. He’d drafted in Trevor Fernley from Abbeydale Grammar, which I’m sure violated the rules! I recall reading an assertion that KES was defaulted for playing an ineligible player, but cannot now find it. Trevor Fernley finished 1st= with Peter J Sowray in the 1975 British Under 16 Championship, which feat included a 78-move draw with 10-year-old Julian Hodgson which lasted 7 hours! He’d been 6th-7th= the year before.
Incidentally, the OE website said, “Info from Peter Smith and Steve Mann; photo from Andrew McCaig”, though I don’t remember contributing!
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