Sheffield & District Chess Association

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20/06/2021

3rd Kelham Island One-Day Outdoor Over-the-Board Rapidplays

 

This took place on Sunday 20/06/2021.  Entries were down on the 2nd event, which organiser Geoff Brown attributed to reasons including the clash with Father’s Day, the weather forecast (“Light rain and a gentle breeze” being forecast by the BBC weather website), and the clash with the British Chess Problem Society AGM (which took out Brian Stephenson).

 

Reduced numbers meant only three venues were needed, with the Fat Cat not being used this time:

Millowners Arms, next to Kelham Island Museum, Alma Street, Sheffield S3 8RY

Saw Grinders Union, Globe Works, Penistone Road, Sheffield S6 3AE

Yellow Arch Studio, 30-36 Burton Road, Neepsend, Sheffield S3 8BX

(Strictly, of these only the Millowners Arms is on, or adjacent to, Kelham Island proper; see below for Kelham Island’s historic tenuous chess connection.)

 

4 players were lined up for each venue, with Geoff lurking in the background as a reserve to cover for any last-minute withdrawal.

 

Millowners Arms

Round 1: 11:15

Final Scores

photo

Oliver Brennan

1-0

Marek Gajdosz

Nathaniel Holroyd‑Doveton

2½

photo

Nathaniel Holroyd‑Doveton

1-0

Mattiangelo D'Agnese

Oliver Brennan

2

Marek Gajdosz

1½

Round 2: 12:15

Mattiangelo D'Agnese

0

Marek Gajdosz

1-0

Mattiangelo D'Agnese

Oliver Brennan

0-1

Nathaniel Holroyd‑Doveton

Round 3: 13:15

Nathaniel Holroyd-Doveton

½‑½

Marek Gajdosz

Mattiangelo D'Agnese

0-1

Oliver Brennan

Saw Grinders Union

Round 1: 11:15

Final Scores

Hamza Ditta

0-1

Craig Chatterton

Craig Chatterton

2½

Andrew Nettleship

0-1

Ian Barker

Ian Barker

2

Andrew Nettleship

1

Round 2: 12:15

Hamza Ditta

½

Craig Chatterton

½-½

Ian Barker

Hamza Ditta

0-1

Andrew Nettleship

Round 3: 13:15

photo

Andrew Nettleship

0-1

Craig Chatterton

photo

Ian Barker

½-½

Hamza Ditta

Yellow Arch Studio

Round 1: 12:15

Final Scores

photo

Rosie Irwin

0-1

Geoff Frost

Jonathan W Arnott

3

Jonathan W Arnott

1-0

Ken Hunter

Geoff Frost

2

Ken Hunter

1

Round 2: 13:15

Rosie Irwin

0

photo

Geoff Frost

1-0

Ken Hunter

Rosie Irwin

0-1

Jonathan W Arnott

Round 3: 14:15

Jonathan W Arnott

1-0

Geoff Frost

Ken Hunter

1-0

Rosie Irwin

 

 

Kelham Island, and an Earlier Chess Connection

 

Kelham sland was artificially created by the diversion of part of the Don to form a millrace to power a waterwheel, that supposedly being in the 1180’s.  As water from the millrace re-entered the Don a little further downstream, an island in the Don was so created.

 

Nowadays, the “Kelham Island Quarter”, as the trendy new terminology has it, extends beyond the original artificial island in the Don into a wider part of the district known as Neepsend.

 

Premises on the island itself included the Union Wheel, accessed from Alma Street.  The Union Wheel, or Union Grinding Wheel, was a steam-powered cutlery factory owned by a group of businessmen who rented individual workshops to cutlers and others, who would power their grinding wheels with drive-belts from the main wheel axle.  Chess-player Tusting Johnson Cocking was secretary around 1849.  This seems to have been something of a family business since the secretary in 1911 was one Alfred F. Cocking.  Archaeological excavations took place at the site on Alma Street over the period April 2003 to July 2008.  Sheffield Museums owns a depiction of the interior in use by cutlers, painted by Sheffield-born artist William J. Stevenson (1835-1905).  When fellow chess-player Dr John Charles Hall wrote about disease among Sheffield grinders in The British Medical Journal of 28th March 1857, he reported that the average age at death of grinders at the Union Wheel, over the period 1850 to 1857, was 40 years.  Dr. Hall appears to have been instrumental in the introduction of the practice of having water running over the grinding process to reduce the amount of hazardous dust being breathed in.