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SHEFFIELD Chess History |
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Contents: |
Shapero Trophy |
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The Shapero trophy was presented for winners of the existing Class C individual championship tournament of the Sheffield & District Chess Association, and bears the inscription:
SHAPERO CHALLENGE CUP PRESENTED TO THE SHEFFIELD CHESS ASSOCIATION BY A SHAPERO ESQ 1938
The trophy consists of a thistle-shaped sterling silver cup, with integral stem and base, sitting on a circular wooden (oak?) plinth. The cup has botanical motifs in strong relief, so precluding engraving of the cup itself. The hallmark is that for sterling silver assayed at London in 1844, and has the “young” Victoria head. Thus the trophy was clearly nearly a hundred years old when pressed into service as the Shapero Challenge Cup.
There are 14 silver shields on the vertical cylindrical face of the wooden plinth. After these were all engraved, plates were added to the curved surface of the basal part of the plinth. After this surface had been filled, metal strips were added to the narrow vertical surface at the very base of the plinth.
Winners of the Class C tournament before 1939 included:
The runner-up in 1931 was H Clark.
Competition for the trophy was interrupted by World War II. The absence of engraving from 1965 to 1977 and in the first half of the 1980s may perhaps relate to there being too few entrants to run the event. Cessation of engraving after 1999 may be attributable to the trophy perhaps having been misplaced, though in a few years before 2016 it seems nobody to it upon themselves to determine any winner in a single Swiss event encompassing Classes A, B and C.
Winners engraved on the trophy were:
The summer league was not contested in 2019-2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Created 17/07/2014 |
Copyright © 2016 Stephen John Mann |
Last Updated 16/02/2021 |