Yorkshire Chess Association

Paper Bulletin Archive

Bulletin Contents (PDF)

Number	Date		Mb	Number	Date		Mb	Number	Date			Mb
2002-01	Jan	2002	11.4	213	Sep	1982	10.3	190	Jul	1976		6.8
2001-10	Oct	2001	9.8	212	May	1982	19.3	189	Mar	1976		8.2
239	Jul	1990	24.9	211	Feb	1982	11.9	188	Jan	1976		7.8
238	Dec	1989	24.5	210	Dec	1981	13.9	187	Dec	1975		6.2
237	Jul	1989	10.2	209	Jun	1981	18.9	*186	Sep	1975		4.9
236	Mar	1989	21.8	208	Feb	1981	13.2	*185sup	Apr	1975		2.6
235	Dec	1988	19.3	207	Dec	1980	11.8	*185	Apr	1975		6.3
234	Nov	1988	3.1	206	Aug	1980	6.8	*184	Nov	1974		3.6
232‑233	May?	1988	13.3	205	May	1980	12.3	*183	May	1974		2.2
231	Jan?	1988	18.7	204	Feb	1980	11.2	*182	Mar	1974		4.5
229-230	Sep?	1987	13.7	203	Dec	1979	12.6	*181	Dec	1973		3.7
228	Apr	1987	23.8	202	Aug	1979	8.6	*180	May	1973		2.2
227	Dec	1986	19.7	201	May	1979	12.9	*179b	Mar	1973		4.6
226	Sep	1986	11.1	200	Feb	1979	15.1	*179a	Dec	1972		3.2
224-225	May	1986	15.9	199	Dec	1978	14.4	*178	Jun	1972		5.6
223	Dec	1985	9.6	198	Jul	1978	8.6	*177	Jan	1972		3.9
221-222	June	1985	11.3	197	Apr	1978	16.3	*176	Nov	1971		2.7
219-220	Feb	1985	22.8	196	Feb	1978	10.1	*175	Aug	1971		1.7
218	Mar	1984	13.1	195	Dec	1977	12.3	*174	May	1971		5.2
217	Dec	1983	11.5	194	Jul	1977	11.5	*173	Jan	1971		3.4
216	Sep	1983	15.1	193	Mar	1977	12.8	*172	Nov	1970		3.4
215	Feb	1983	12.3	192	Jan	1977	10.4	* not searchable
214	Dec	1982	14.7	191	Dec	1976	8.2	-	-		-

To display, click on appropriate pink-background Bulletin Number on the left. For the first two, from A5 booklets, right-click and select “Rotate Clockwise”, or click on the “rotate” icon at the top, if there is one, according to browser.

Subject to OCR capability limitations, most of these files are searchable using the “find” function. Be warned, however, that if you search for a word (or name) then not all occurrences will necessarily actually be picked up.

The approximate size of each file is given in megabytes. Files can take some moments to load. You can, of course, save the files to your computer.

Nowadays, PDF files on a website tend to be viewed within a web browser, rather than Adobe Acrobat, and in such cases, to return to this index, you need to click on the browser’s “back” button since closing the document closes the browser!

Numbers 210 to 239 were lent for scanning by Malcolm Corbett.

Numbers 172 to 209 were then lent by David Firth. Unfortunately, numbers 172 to 186 are foolscap size, which presents problems as they will not fit on an A4 scanner, necessitating somewhat laborious techniques, resulting in a file which is NOT word-searchable, such being marked with an asterisk.

There were 2 successive issues numbered “179”, here called “179a” and “179b”, and the numbering was never adjusted to compensate.

If anyone has copies of numbers before 172 or after 239, then I would welcome the opportunity to scan them and include them here.

See below for comments on the origins of the YCA Bulletin.

Origins of the Yorkshire Chess Association Bulletin

Given that number 172 was the first of season 1970-71, and that there were normally 4 issues per annum/season, number 1 might, a little simplistically, be inferred to have been produced in the season 1927-28. However, that ignores any cessation during World War II, and adjusting accordingly suggests the Yorkshire Bulletin started around season 1921-22.

It was around that time that William (“Bill”) Batley of Sheffield started a long-running weekly chess column in the Yorkshire Telegraph & Star, which paper dwindled in time to the (Sheffield) Star. He had written a chess column in the Sheffield Weekly News, from October 1899 to August 1922 when that paper ceased publication, with a period in the middle when the column was carried by Yorkshire Telegraph & Star. The column ceased for a few weeks in August 1922, then resumed on a definitive basis in the Yorkshire Telegraph & Star on 9th September 1922. The Yorkshire Telegraph and Star’s name over the years has lost its “Yorkshire” and then its “Telegraph”, and is now what Sheffielders know simply as the “Star”.

This column covered not only Sheffield area chess in as much detail as possible, but also Yorkshire county-level chess in detail, meaning especially the Yorkshire inter-town team competitions such as the Woodhouse Cup, and inter-county matches. A significant point is that whilst like most other chess columns it would quote from other newspaper columns and the British Chess Magazine, it never quoted from the YCA Bulletin! One possibility is that the YCA Bulletin did not exist at that time, but another possibility suggests itself. My own suspicion, without anything other than circumstantial evidence at present, is that Bill Batley was producing a YCA Bulletin, on a roughly quarterly basis alongside his comprehensive column in the Yorkshire Telegraph & Star.

Results from YCA team competition, inter-county matches and the like were published in the Yorkshire Telegraph & Star normally in the next appearance of the column after the event, thus, far from needing to quote from the YCA bulletin, Batley was probably publishing in advance virtually everything which in due course would find its way into the YCA Bulletin, thus he would never quote from the YCA Bulletin!

Steve Mann

08/09/2020