Ever wondered who won the Bedfordshire League in 65? Read on.
Archive for May, 2024
65 Champions
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Bedford v Luton 1888
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 6, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Chess in Bedfordshire, Dickens & White (1933), pg.41
The match below does not feature in the 1933 publication Chess in Bedfordshire but one later that year does. Note that it is described as a return match, so we can assume the two clubs played each other quite often. Here are the details.
Regarding the aforementioned match found in Chess in Bedfordshire of November that year, there were interim matches, also not included in the publication with reportage below which details the sentiments of the players somewhat.
The balance of power in the thirties
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »
First and foremost it must be remembered that Bedfordshire is classified as a minor county chesswise. Furthermore, the home counties has never been described as a chess stronghold or major centre for chess in England ever because its not and has never been. But that said Bedfordshire has punched above its weight on more than one occasion in the past and started to show its strength in the 30s a decade on from the formation of the Bedfordshire Chess Association, when our collectivity began to come together for national events. The reportage below shows that Luton was the strongest club in the league back then, and consequently, we were able to take on bigger counties and hold our own accordingly.
Our north/south divide, when did it disappear?
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »
One question I cannot answer is when did Bedfordshire stop dividing itself up and play county matches as one only. I do not know when north Bedfordshire and south Bedfordshire matches came to an end but clearly later than what most would assume. Well perhaps not but I assumed they stopped in the 1920s -how wrong I was. I don’t have enough information to comment on their regularity and significance, however, the reportage below sheds some light on the matter.
Update: the question of a north/south divide was in fact rooted in our league, which extended to county matches. I have uncovered reportage to prove this. The north/south Bedfordshire county matches were the only means for players within Bedfordshire to compete against each other. In the 1951/2 season, Bedford applied to play in the Luton League, as is stated below, with Leighton Buzzard having already entered a team into division 2. This is a significant discovery. In previous posts it was documented that Bedford also had 6 clubs of its own just after the war. I will continue to search until I find evidence which shows when Bedfordshire was united as a county in terms of league and county matches.
The following year Bedford won the league in their first season, with the team from Leighton Buzzard still in division 2.
Some three years later we find the term ‘Bedfordshire league’ being used and not ‘Luton league’.
No war can keep those up in Bedford away from the chess board!
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Look at this. Following wartime regulations or perhaps prudence, the folk of Bedford kept their chess club closed during WW2 but did that stop them from playing chess? Not on your nelly!
3 years on there were developments…
‘The forerunner of many others’, so says the reportage below but what is that supposed to mean? No matter what, we have unearthed reportage providing details of what is claimed to be Bedford Castle’s first ever match. For the purposes of this post, please take note that WW2 had not ended when the match was played. What conclusions can we draw from this? Mine is that those up in Bedford were a brave, rebellious bunch that played on, undeterred by the danger of bombs dropping on them during play. They must have been tough nuts, just imagine having fashioned a won endgame only to then fail to covert your advantage due to the club being raised from the ground by the Luftwaffe!
Later that year in their bombproof chess club, those indestructible Bedfordians took on allied servicemen and took them out 6-1, finishing a host military men, chiefly Sergeants and Lieutenants. And this was described as ‘the first match of the season’ by those hardmen of Bedfordshire chess.
It gets worse, as the war came to a close there 6 -yes 6- clubs running in Bedford with plans to draw up its own league!
The vans weren’t the best and neither was the chess club!
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Commer chess club, which is reported as based in Luton below, wasn’t terribly strong in the Bedfordshire league. That conclusion is true if, and only if, we rely on inductive reasoning (moving from specific to general) and use the match below as the primary example. However, as Dr. Richard Eales points out, it is not the task of the historian to make predictions, so let’s refrain from saying how good they were overall for now and focus more on what’s below. Here we do have reportage of them failing to start (a bit like their vans used to when they got old) a match properly against Bedford and getting trounced as a result. Tsk, tsk.
Aside, your author would like to point out that not long after leaving school I played V. Maluga in Luton (early in 1989) and beat him with the Ruy Lopez. I wore a yellow jumper and took ages over all my moves. It was a long game, and he complained afterwards that I took too long to move…I could say sore loser but I won’t!
Mark. J. McCready
Gracey goes organizing
Posted in Chess in Thailand, My daughter on May 5, 2024| Leave a Comment »
My beloved daughter has decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps and help organize chess tournaments.
Chess lessons, participation in the national junior championships, and just about every book ever written on chess for kids wasn’t enough for her, she just wants to help her mum instead -okay well at least I tried.
For the second time this year she is assisting her mother at a major tournament (but not playing). Yesterday she was helping control the kids in the blitz tournament by stopping them leaving the playing hall in the middle of it. Today she is helping prepare medals.
As both a father and a chess lover, I am happy to see her still connected to our beautiful game.
Daniel Dennett
Posted in Academia on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
When I undertook a Masters degree in Philosophy, I once asked my lecturer a question concerning Dennett’s account of consciousness that he could not answer.
Here Dennett offers an account of chess computers that may be seen by some as being outdated.
In hallowed antiquity they had it right
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
You don’t want to spend the night only playing chess do you? Why? How about you mix it up and play other games also, wouldn’t that be more enjoyable?
Just look at this cutting from The Bedford & County Record, December 28th 1889. There’s an ad with a proposal in it to generate interest in something special. To get people playing games. To get matches happening.
Taking the mickey down in Kent
Posted in Quaint Chess History on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The Bedford Record once again.
Myself aside, who in their right mind plays chess at 4am?
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A side note on how to read old Tom Sweby's columns
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Not perhaps, but quintessentially, Old Tom Sweby is best thought of as a passionate devotee to the newspapers he wrote for. He was well read and knowledgeable of the Bedfordshire chess scene and well beyond, given that he was the president of the S.C.C.U. once upon a time. He was generally well-respected and rubbed shoulders with many, if not all, of those eminent within British chess circles. It would, however, be a critical mistake to see his column is primary source material entirely. That it is not. You will also find secondary source material quoted too, and the reliability of that is not quite as Tom hoped. Given that he wrote for decades, this is to some degree inevitable, and after all we are all prone to error whether we realize it or not. Thankfully, with regards to old Tom Sweby, they are infrequent and for the most part old Tom continued to document events and developments in the Bedfordshire league from the get go as best he could but, of course, everything lies open to interpretation. Despite this, and generally speaking. this does indeed make him informative and thus worth reading. Dare I say his columns constitute a narrative describing the latest developments, match reports and changing nature of the Beds league...he knew his audience and wrote according. This manifested itself over decades but brevity was always in play courtesy of the restictions imposed by writing a column. Should you wish to read a in instrumental figure of the Beds' league post WW2, you are quite welcome to peruse what has been posted here... . :-) I should, however, point out that as the decades wore on he gradually moved on away from narratives concerning the Bedfordshire league towards affairs both historical and international. The reasons for this are multifarous, old age was a predominante factor presumably, however, the bottom line is with regards to how the Bedfordshire chess scene developed post WW2: old Tom Sweby is your go to guy. He wrote more about chess in Bedforshire than anyone else did but given he was a Lutonian and writing for a Luton newspaper there is both bias and greater coverage of his hometown than the rest of the county.
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