Back in the 1970s, the peripatetic “Yorkshire Congress” was held in a church hall on the left-hand side, going up, of Burngreave Road, Sheffield. (Location detail for Jeremy Hamm’s interest.)

The first locally run “Sheffield Chess Congress” was that run by Brian England and his wife Christine, in 1983, at the university’s Ranmoor hall of residence. A second congress was run by the Englands in 1984, this time at the University’s Octagon Centre. These were probably Sheffield’s most successful chess congresses ever, but they then gave up running a congress. (I beat a Sri Lankan Olympiad team member in 1983 – Jay Somasundrum – so that event was successful for me, at least.)

Later, vaguely in the 1990s, a series of Sheffield Chess Congresses was started and built up to two weekend congresses per year and two one-day rapidplays per year. They were organised by a team including Steve Bessell, Geoff Brown, Steve Mann, Adrian Millward and Brian Stephenson. When Steve Bessell returned to the London area, to look after his ailing father, that series ground to a halt as nobody wanted to take over as congress secretary.

The Recent Series of Congresses

When the 2011 British Championships were arranged to be held in Sheffield, the local Association had the option of running an ECF Championship Qualifying event. As I happened to be Sheffield & District Chess Association’s Chairman of the Executive for 2010-11, I didn’t want that option to be missed “on my watch”, so I formed a committee which resulted in the 2011 Sheffield Congress.

I’d never wanted to be running congresses again, though it’s difficult not to be sucked into a vacuum. After seven consecutive Sheffield Congresses (2011 to 2017) I signalled that I couldn’t face the stress of another congress. As it happened, Brian Stephenson had been trying to screw up courage to say the same thing! That left only Phil Beckett, apart from other at-event section controllers, so the job of running the event went into the metaphorical “situations vacant” column, but no candidates came forward in time to run Sheffield 2018.

At a time when other congresses are experiencing financial difficulties, or so I’m told, the Sheffield Chess Congress is modestly comfortable financially, as is Doncaster Chess Congress. Will Sheffield Chess Congress be revived?

Steve Mann