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16/09/2025 Christopher C W Shephard 25/02/1951 – 14/09/2025
Sheffield Nomads chess club has been informed that Chris Shephard died on Sunday the 14th of September. The cause was reportedly some form of abdominal cancer which had been deemed untreatable. He had been at the forefront of Sheffield chess from 1977 to the present, his last competitive game having been as recently as 07/07/2025 in the Summer League.
Christopher C W Shephard was born in Birmingham on 25th of February 1951. What the “C W” in the middle stood for is unclear. (Geoff Frost says, “I am almost certain that C W stood for Charles Walter. Chris hated being known as CCW!”.) He has a brother, Andrew N R Shephard, who Chris mentioned to me once as being “Andrew” within the family, but “Andy” outside. (The writer was never “Steve” until the chess world imposed that name on him.)
Chris attended King Edwards, Birmingham, where he was the first person to select a certain A J Miles to play in a chess team, for an inter-house match. This was, of course, Tony Miles, born 23 April 1955, destined to attend Sheffield University and to become the first England player to qualify as a Grandmaster. (After Chris had left the school, King Edward VII school, Sheffield, played King Edward’s (VI), Birmingham in the Sunday Times competition, and I with White played on board 1 against the said A. J. Miles. The opening was 1. d4 f5 2. g4. Miles was clearly unprepared and chewed his fingernails continually, but he eventually won!)
He’s recorded as joining KES Birmingham old Boys Association in 1969. There seemed no evidence of him going to university, but Jon Nelson unearthed references to him playing for Sussex University. Chris’s attendance at Sussex University is confirmed by reference to grading lists showing him in 1971 and 1972 as of both South Birmingham and Sussex University chess clubs. Enigmatically, he is listed in neither the 1970 BCF Grading List nor the 1970 SCCU Grading List, rather suggesting he dutifully buckled down and concentrated on his studies and abstained from any significant amount of chess?!
+-+-+-+-+-+-+ What follows starts with a random selection of snippets which illustrate Chris’s early prominence in Birmingham and Warwickshire chess, and then my personal remembrances of Chris in his earlier years in Sheffield while he was connected with Rotherham Chess Club in its heyday along with extracted details events he played in. Others may wish to submit their own contributions. In particular, Martin Howard has submitted a well-written person piece which appears separately below. (Click here to jump down to it.) +-+-+-+-+-+-+
Chess before Sheffield
In 1967 Chris played on board 10 for Birmingham league v Leamington league, beating J T Wood.
In April 1968 he won the West Midlands and Warwickshire U-18 Boys’ Championship.
He played in the British U-18 Championship of 1968, finishing 37th-44th= out of 54, on 4½ out of 11.
The 1969 Warwickshire Championship was a 5-player all-play-all won Peter Griffiths (Solihull) on 3 points out of 4, followed by 2nd-3rd= R. V. M Hall (Birmingham, later Bradford, becoming a high court judge) and C. C. W. Shephard (South Birmingham) on 2½. There followed, J R Crampton (Birmingham) on 1½, and W Ritson Morry (Mutual) who as defending champion managed to score only ½.
In 1969, KES Birmingham reached the two-day semi-finals and finals of the Sunday Times held in London. In the final, Birmingham met Dundee High School and at the close of play the score was 3-2 in Birmingham’s favour. Normally, adjudications are done there and then to give a final result on the day, but, as Jon Nelson dug up to his amusement, adjudicator C H O’D Alexander, declined to adjudicate since as a former pupil of KES Birmingham he would be biased. So, the adjudication was afterwards sent to Harry Golombek, who awarded Tony Miles a loss, making the score 3-3 when Dundee won on tie-break. What Jon doesn’t know is that I (Steve Mann) was actually there. KES Sheffield lost in the semi-final to Dundee. I drew my game on board one with black against Dundee’s Chris Jones (now of chess problem fame). Later, as Steve Lorber and I were on our way to the evening meal, our lift got stuck, resulting in at irate American threatening to sue, and an elderly German lady believing she would die of asphyxiation despite being consoled by her daughter. Later that evening, some KES Sheffield and Dundee players played bridge into the early hours. The next day, Chris Shephard lost to Chris Jones in the final; so, that’s one up to me. At some stage, presumably the morning of the first day, all four teams were treated to a cinema showing of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, though there was a feeling we were all a bit old for such a film. By a strange quirk of fate, one of the Dundee team, Andrew Baruch, was years later captain of a Warwickshire team playing against Yorkshire at the Abbey were B&J played (now Ecclesall’s venue); he now plays for Kenilworth,.
The British Universities Chess Association (BUCA) championships were held 6th to 11th April 1970 at Manchester University, the latter entering three teams in the team event. The preliminary stage put Sussex from Preliminary section D into Final section 2 where they came second, making them 10th-11th= overall (with Warwick as it happens). In the Final phase, Chris won with black against J Sanz of Southampton in a Sokolsky, but the game is absent from the official bulletin. One of Chris’s games has been exhumed, against a player from Manchester III in the preliminary phase. Click on the following link to play through the game on screen:
In 1971 Chris played in the Paignton Congress.
On 12/05/1973, he was board 7 for Warwickshire against Lancashire in the English Counties ¼-finals (presumably 1972-73 season). Chris beat a T Ludgate. Warks. captain W Ritson Morry reckoned this was probably the strongest Warwickshire team he’d ever fielded, but Warks. lost 5½-14½ to a much stronger Lancashire line-up.
Shortly after, on 19/05/1973, Warwickshire met Leicestershire in the final of the Midland Counties Championship. The final score was 8-8, and Warks. won on board count. Chris was on board 4 and drew with Kevin Wicker.
In 1973, Chris played in the Midland Open Championship, part of the Birmingham International Congress, finishing 2nd on 8½ out of 11, behind the winner, Louis de Veauce who scored 9 points. Chris’s game with Michael J Pitt is mentioned later.
The relative timings of ECF final and MCCU final suggests the ECF competition was in those days based of the previous season’s Union results, or the two were then wholly separate.
On about 23rd of March 1974, Chris was playing on board 2 for Warwickshire against Leicestershire in the Midland Counties semi-final, drawing with L A Edwards.
On 09/04/1974 played board 1 for Birmingham in the annual Birmingham v Coventry League match – losing to R. S. McFarland.
On about 14/09/1974, Chris played board 5 for Warwickshire against Nottinghamshire beating T. Guy.
On 03/07/1975, Chris play on board 4 for Warwickshire against a much stronger Lancashire team in the English Counties Championship, losing to Martyn Corden,
At the Birmingham Easter Congress of 10th-25th April 1976, in the Midland Open Championship, Chris finished 3rd-4th= out of with Chris W Baker on 7½ out of 11, behind Glenn Lambert 1st on 10 and Stephen Berry 2nd on 9½.
October 1976 saw the first Warwickshire Open Championship. Chris entered and shared 1st and 2nd places with Nigel Povah (formerly of Leeds University).
Over-the-Board Chess while in Sheffield
By the time of the 1977 British Chess Championship held in Brighton from 8th to 19th August, Chris was resident in Sheffield, meaning the move to Sheffield was at some time from October 1976 to August 1977.
In the 1977 British Championship, Chris finished 25th-30th= out of 40, with 5 points out of 11. A notable result was a draw with 8th-11th-placed Jonathan Penrose. His best win was perhaps that against Glenn Flear (then East Midlands Under 18 Champion), which featured Chris’s favoured Czech Benoni set-up, with Black’s king’s bishop being deployed either via e7 or being fianchettoed. Click on the following link to play through the game on screen. Glenn Flear 0-1 Chris Shephard
Chris had taken up a computer programming post at Midland Bank in Sheffield, and the bank played in the Sheffield Works Chess League.
After a game on board 1 in a Sheffield Works League match between Midland Bank and the Civil Service team (whose name varied a bit), Chris, having once again drawn with the writer, this time with the Czech Benoni, said I seemed to save my best chess to play against him! In reality, you knew Chris’s next move before he did, he was so predictable.
That somewhat stodgy, safe style was not always his style. Going back to the 1973, Midland Open Championship, with White against the then-or-soon-to-be Warwickshire Under 18 Champion Michael Pitt, Chris opened with the Grob Attack, 1. g4, in a manner reminiscent of the writer’s treatment of Tony Miles mentioned above. Click on the following link to play through the game on screen. Chris Shephard 1-0 Michal Pitt
Once in Sheffield, Chris joined Rotherham Chess Club which in those days was a major contender for Sheffield League Division 1 (Davy Trophy), and Yorkshire League Division 1 (Woodhouse Cup).
Prior to 1977, Colin Evans had won the Sheffield Championship more times that anyone else, having notched up 8 wins (but not in the year the writer as a schoolboy knocked him out!). The most any other person had won it was 4 times, 4-time winners being Charlie Gurhill, Norman Littlewood and Brian Jones,
In 1977, Chris won the Sheffield Championship, and up to 2019 inclusive Chris had won it 29½ times, the “½” being in 1994 when he shared it with Alan Potts. The second-best total during that period was 3, scored by Paul Blackman.
Rotherham used to enter the British Team Lightning Championship, winning it in 1975, though that was before Chris arrived in Sheffield. I remember in a later year travelling with Chris in his car down to the British Team Lightning at Woolwich Arsenal, with me navigating. Bizarrely, I didn’t bring any maps but merely aimed for the Thames between the Blackwall Tunnel and the bridge further to the west, aiming to use whichever presented itself to cross the river, then navigate from memory of the general layout. At one stage, while going southwards through London, I told Chris he needed to be more over to the right. Why? – because the apparel of the gentlemen in the street made it clear we were going through Golders Green, too far to the east. We got there easily enough.
On one occasion, returning from a match, four Rotherham players including Paul Blackman and myself, stopped at a pub and decided to have a doubles game of pool. Paul was the strongest pool player of the four while I had never played before! So, I was paired with Paul. The other two as far as I remember were Chris and Geoff Frost. Nobody else would be daft enough. Anyway, it got to the point where there was one ball left to be potted, and it was my turn. The snag was that the ball to be potted was near a middle pocket but the cue ball was in the opposite half of the table. For a professional, it was an easy case of sending the cue ball down to the far cushion so that is bounced back and kicked the other ball so that it went into the pocket. Being academically a physicist, I could work out the angle to make the cue ball hit the other ball in the right place to pot it, and, a little surprisingly, putting theory into practiced actually worked. The ball went down the pocket, and Paul and I had won. That was the only time I actually beat Chris at anything!
Chris served as an adjudicator in the days of adjudication of unfinished games, and I used to be able to walk from my own home in the Nether Edge area, up the Brincliffe Edge and down the other side to get to Chris’s bachelor pad on Bannerdale Road to deliver adjudications. That house had a garage with an up-and-over garage door, and on one occasion he dislocated a shoulder opening that door, just before he was about to go on a skiing holiday, which of course got cancelled.
When Brian Jones drove me to Woodhouse Cup matches and the like, he’d give a time for me to be at Sheffield Midland Station knowing I’d be on time. If Chris was travelling with us, Brian would give Chris a time 10 minutes earlier, as he knew Chris was invariably late!
In time, Rotherham lost its former strength as a foremost club in the Sheffield area. Brian Jones moved back to Manchester around 1982 (then emigrated to Australia). I helped form Darnall & Handsworth around 1984. The Works League eventually folded, and so on. Chris ended up joining Sheffield Nomads. So, in the last 20-ish years Chris and chess paths have not crossed.
He played in the Doncaster Congress of 2006, the Sheffield Congress of 2012 (4th-6th=), and the Scarborough Congress of 2012.
Once he became old enough, Chris competed, initially regularly, in the British Over 65 Championship, doing so in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2024. He tended to hold those who finished above him to a draw, but was inadequately ruthless in maximising the point extracted from those finishing below him, so, despite sometimes starting as the highest rated player, he never won the event. The relevant fact here is perhaps that Chris was not a regular congress-player. A summary of his British Under-65 exploits is as follows:
In 2017, Chris drew with Roger Emerson in round 5, and in the final round drew with Stephen Berry, thereby denying the latter a won game to secure clear first place. In 2018, Chris drew with two of three joint winners in games of little interest in themselves, but also drew with two lower-placed players, so denying himself first place. In 2019, Chris seems to have decided to fight rather acquiesce to draws. Thus, he lost to the only one of the 1st-placed players (Page, a lower-rated player), but on the other hand scored 4 wins whereas hitherto he’d managed only 3. He lost to local player Jim Burnett. Covid precluded the OTB British Championship 2020, and Caplin British Online Chess Championships 2020/2021 plugged the gap. Chris didn’t feature in the rather weak 16-player Over-65 event, but dived into the local online events run by Rotherham’s Oliver Brennan. Chris didn’t enter the 2021, 2022 or 2023 British Over 65s, but sallied forth again in 2014. In 2024, Chris took a half-point bye in round 1. In round 2 he continued the “make it up as you go along” approach to openings seen back in 2017, beating a much weaker player. The same unorthodox approach netted him only a draw against another weaker opponent in round 3. For round four, Chris played a “proper” opening as White – and thereby managed to lose to a weaker opponent! In round 4, he beat a significantly weaker player in an initially symmetrical English in which Chris would feel very much at home. (After 1. c4 e5, an early f5 by Black worked for me against Chris.) In round 5, he redeemed himself with a win against 2019 joint winner Brian Hewson. Round 6 saw a 24-move draw with joint 2018 winner Geoffrey James. Chris lost abysmally his round-7 game against a player rated a mere 9 points more (nothing). All games from the above events are freely available in PGN format. Here follow a few which take my fancy, to be played here on screen by clicking on the link:
Then there’s the English (as opposed to British) Over 65 Championship . . . . This was first held in 2019, held in April rather than July/August. Chris participated in the 2019, 2022 and 2023 editions, summarised as follows:
Here are two games from 2019. In the first, Chris holds the ultimate winner to a draw. In the second, Chris meet a fellow silly-opening exponent.
Chris played for Yorkshire in 7 county matches (but only in the ECF Final stage) over the period 09/06/2018 to 08/06/2024.
Prior to that his previous 2 appearances in county matches were much earlier and were representing Warwickshire, as follows:
Despite living in Sheffield, Chris maintained connections with his friends in Birmingham. Not that long after him coming to Sheffield, Chris arranged for a Rotherham team to go down to Birmingham to play a friendly match against his old club, South Birmingham. He continued to play, albeit occasionally, for Warwickshire in county matches (as above). As late as 1997, he played for Warwickshire in the now‑discontinued Counties Rapidplay Championships. He played in the 4NCL for Warwickshire Select as recently as 2023-24 season. In the following game from the season 2014-25, Chris’s higher rated opponent sacrifices the exchange for a pawn and gets reasonable compensation, but Black perhaps over‑presses and Chris manages to turn the tables, and once Black realises his position is hopeless, seems intentionally to set up a sort of self-make rather than simply resign. Click on the following link to play through the game on screen. Chris Shephard 1-0 Clement Sreeves.
Correspondence Chess while in Sheffield
A less visible yet major side of Chris’s devotion to chess was his engagement with correspondence chess. In the old days, it was of course carried out by “snail mail” but is now played online. Things also changed over with the advent of chess-analysing computer software with meant players with modest over-the-board ability could be strong correspondence players.
Chris started young, winning the 1972 British Junior Correspondence Chess Championship. He went on to win the British Correspondence Chess Championship proper in 1978 and then again in 1979 jointly with S D Cunliffe and A M Stewart. He became an International Correspondence Chess Master in 1984,
He was board six of the 6-board Great Britain team in the 9th ICCF Olympiad which ran from 1977 to 1982, with the second-best board 6 total of 5½ out of 8. (GB boards: 1 Jonathan Penrose, 2 Adrian Swayne Hollis, 3 Simon Webb, 4 John Kenneth Footner [the only one unfamiliar to me], 5 John Toothill, 6 Chris C W Shephard.)
The North Atlantic Team Tournament is a correspondence tournament between 8-board teams from countries on the western fringe of Europe and in North & Central America & the Caribbean. The 1st was played in 1984-85 and Chris was selected to play for Great Britain on board 8. Great Britain won the event. The players selected in later events seemed to be to give different people a go, and Chris seems not to have played in this event again. Click on the following link to play through Chris’s game on screen: F Perez Conde 0-1 Chris Shephard
He was board six of the 6-board Great Britain team in the 9th ICCF Olympiad which ran from 1982 to 1987, with the second/third-best board 6 total of 6½ out of 8. (GB boards as in 1982.) Here are two of Chris’s games. Annotators to Chris’s game against Brglez were unsure as to whether Brglez made a clerical error with 4. e4 or was trying it out as a gambit! Russian correspondence GM Omelschenko comes up with something of an opening innovation in the Najdorf Sicilian. Chris seems to be getting the worst of it but defends well and manages to draw. Great Britain came 1st, West Germany 2nd, and USSR (who’d been 1st in the previous three events) 3rd. Click on the following links to play through two of Chris’s games on screen: L E Omeltschenko ½-½ C Shephard
As an individual, he played in the Julius Nielson Memorial which ran from 26/09/1985 to about 09/10/1990, finishing 5th-8th = (7th on Sonneborn-Berger tie-break) on 7 out of 14, Jonathan Penrose being 1st. Nielsen was a Danish correspondence player who died in 1981. His game against R(o)umanian Mihai Breazu has been published, though it’s nothing special. Click on the following link to play through Breazu v Shephard on screen: Mihai Breazu 0-1 Chris Shephard
The ICCF server reveals he played for Warwickshire in the Counties & District Correspondence Chess Championship Division 1 aka the Ward-Higgs in the seasons 2005-06 to 2018-19, seemingly except 2008-09. Warwickshire dropped out of the event after 2018-19.
Once when I took a position for adjudication round to Chris at 187 Bannerdale Road, he had the latest position in one of his postal games set up, and asked me for ideas as to what he should do. That might sound daft as I was of course weaker than he, but as with cryptic crosswords, the brain can get stuck in ruts when analysing, so I may have kindled some worthwhile idea he’d not thought of (yet). The humour of him asking for my comments became apparent when he mentioned he was in that game playing a Russian Correspondence Grandmaster, who of course I routinely ate for breakfast (or not).
There are, of course, more important things than chess.
Family
There was a lady Sheffield chess-player who originally married a Sheffield University chess-player, the two staying on in Sheffield after university. Sadly, she decided to leave the marriage, and set her aim on Chris! That didn’t get her anywhere. She’s long gone down south and aimed her sights even higher in terms of chess-playing strength, remarrying. No names appropriate here.
It was customary, after a Saturday Woodhouse Cup match, for a significant proportion of the Rotherham team to go and have a meal in an Indian restaurant, and on one such occasion Chris produced and introduced a lady friend called Mavis. Obviously, matrimony or something similar was possibly on the cards, and I remember taking the liberty of telling Chris later that Mavis seemed an ideal partner for him, and so it turned out!
For one reason or another, Chris Shepherd and Mavis King did not get married, but three children mean more than matrimonial bureaucracy in my book. So it was that Amy Elizabeth King was born in January 1986 (or maybe slightly before), Clara Jane King was born in the latter part of 1988, and James William King was born in the earlier part of 1992, all taking Mavis’s surname.
Apparently, Chris and Mavis did in fact get married recently, maybe as recently as 2024.
Once, I and my own “other half” (and no, we aren’t married either) with members of the extended family, spent a day visiting Hardwick Hall. While we were in a café there, quite by chance, Chris and Mavis entered. They had a daughter with them back in the car so didn’t stay long.
Whilst words cannot do much, I’m sure all in the Sheffield & District Chess Association, and beyond, who new Chris would wish to express their sorrow and sympathy for Chris’s family.
Steve Mann
Martin Howard’s appreciation of Chris. +-+-+-+-+-+-+
The number of comments about Chris speaks volumes about how highly he was regarded by all who knew him. I was privileged to know him for many years. I played him a number of times over the board. He usually outplayed me although I did manage a couple of draws. My one win was as a result of adjudication. Chris thought the adjudicators should have decided it was drawn and he was probably right !
David Adams knew Chris even longer than I did. They had played in school matches in the Birmingham area. I think Jon is correct when he is doubtful that Chris went to Warwick. I do have a recollection that it may have been Sussex. Also Geoff is right that Chris and Mavis married quite recently.
Chris was incredibly modest. He was a phenomenally strong correspondence player, as you can see from the information on English Chess Forum : twice British Correspondence Chess Champion (1977 and 1978). He was also strong over the board. I doubt anyone will ever beat his score of 29 wins in the Sheffield Individual Championship.
I know Chris was very proud of having been a founder member of Sheffield Nomads. He will be a huge loss to the club.
For my part I was fortunate to play golf with Chris for several years. David Adams and I used to play golf with Chris usually at Birley Golf Course in Sheffield but occasionally at Beauchief or Dore & Totley. I was amused to see the comments about Chris’ s timekeeping. Others have mentioned that he was usually late for chess matches. It was no different with golf. Sometimes he did not arrive until after our tee off time. Nevertheless we all had a great time. After golf we would retire to the pub next door where we would often play through our recent chess games. I will very much miss those times.
A gentle soul indeed and a huge loss to us all.
Martin
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