SHEFFIELD Chess History

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1993-94: Sheffield League

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The points table for the first league season, 1893-94, was as follows:

	Matches				Games
Team	Total	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against	Points
West End	12	10	0	2	52½	37½	10
Y.M.C.A.	12	9	2	1	70	40	10
Arundel	12	7	0	5	54	47	7
Stocksbridge	12	5	0	7	38	48	5
St. Peter’s	12	4	1	7	46	57	4½
Walkley	12	3	1	8	23	51	3½
Rotherham	12	1	2	9	13½	16½	2

Thus West End and Y.M.C.A. jointly won the first season of the Sheffield Chess League.  As there was no trophy involved, no attempt was made to split the tie.  The system for determining number of boards in a match meant games for and against couldn’t necessarily be fairly used to break the tie, but on a percentage basis the Y.M.C.A. would have come out as winners.  The order as published (above) tacitly gave precedence to the higher number of match wins.

Rotherham played their first five matches, then withdrew, so defaulting seven matches.  How these defaulted matches were accounted for in the totals of games for and against isn’t clear.  All the other matches were played.  Thus there were 35 matches played.  297 games were played in those matches.  The average number of boards per match was 8, in round figures, though actually nearly 8½.  100 players were reported to have taken part, which is an an average of 14 players per team.

Main source:

[Sheffield Daily Telegraph, Monday 16/04/1894 (page 8)]

Created 17/06/2015

Stephen John Mann

Last Updated 17/06/2015