McCreadyandChess

Those 7 seconds of fame for the school chess champion

In 1988, and as school chess champion, I can be seen on Match of The Day for about 7 seconds, although you won’t really be able to tell it’s me. I am wearing my beloved blue and yellow Puma jacket and went to the FA Cup reply with school mate Stuart Tennyson (more on him below). If you go to 1.04, and look towards the bottom of the screen you will see someone standing with a blue and yellow jacket on, that is me, and the person to my left who you see me talk to but can barely make out at all is Stuart -I leant him my membership card to get in the ground, handing it to him through the turnstyles after I had got in.

Memories of Stuart at school that refer to chess but touch upon football can be found lifted from a previous post. I do need to clarify, that post is 35,000 words long and took 19 months to write. It is an accurate account of chess in my youth and nothing below has been exaggerated or invented on any level, instead the most accurate recollection of what occurred has been documented (not for the faint-hearted):

Chess in classrooms where riots broke out

A kid called Jalil joined our school in the first term of our final year. He was Turkish and spoke little English but became my little friend quickly. Classmate Martin and I were asked to show him around and help him find classrooms. His English was very poor, he was new but we smoothed it over for him until his personality began to protrude, then we had to duck for cover. Jalil came from a family of martial arts experts. He was short, stocky, and a blackbelt in karate well before he became fifteen. He worked out rigorously and destroyed everyone in arm-wrestling contests. He had plenty of hot Turkish blood flowing through him and like myself he loved chess. He called me ‘Scottish’ because ‘Scottish’ was my nickname at school. Afterall, most of my relatives were Scottish and I spoke some of the words my nan taught me in her Scottish accent. And whenever England played Scotland at football, I would always run across the road and watch it in their house with a kilt on and support Scotland.

Jalil and I played chess at the back of the class in most lessons, and when we didn’t play chess we played blackjack. Jalil was expelled from school because he threw a typewriter at another pupil’s head -missing by inches only. That boy was a certain Matthew Jefferson -himself a right handful to say the least. In French Matthew once came to class late, and as he walked behind the row those in front of us sat in, he stabbed three people in the back of the head with his pen in one swift movement, much to their dismay and my amusement. But as Matthew found out, Jalil was the wrong person to try it on with. When summoned to a senior teacher to explain why he threw a typewriter at Matthew’s head, Jalil said nothing and again took no nonsense. I stood outside and heard the kerfuffle. What was going on in there I didn’t know. But furniture was being damaged of that I was sure. I saw the look on the teacher’s face as he left visibly flustered, definitely unvictorious in his hurried departure.  

But just before Jalil was thrown out there was a riot in our class, and Jalil was on fine, fine form. Luton Town F.C won the league cup at Wembley Stadium the weekend before. All week we waved our tightly knotted scarves about and spent break times running about smacking smaller kids round the head with them. We were all so happy –but at Stockwood High School, that was frowned upon in classrooms. During English class, a pupil named Stuart Tennyson paraded his Luton scarf in class proudly but our substitute teacher was having none of that. She was more middle-class than the many others ushered in before her, and so confiscated Stuart’s scarf as he brandished it. Uppity and uncaring, on she carried, focusing on her next pay packet more than her insolent pupils –that was her mistake. Up Stuart stood and strutted up to her desk, snatching it back with a smile on his face to show us all.  She stopped writing on the board, walked up to his desk, and visibly angered, snatched it back. A fierce argument broke out, ending when Stuart snatched back his scarf for the last time and whacked her round the side of the head with it in front of everyone. Out she stormed, cheer ourselves on we did then we rioted. At first Jalil and I carried on our game of Blackjack at the back of the class, then it got messy, really messy. Everyone was going at it so we joined in. We both turned over tables and together ripped the legs off them, then an about to be expelled Jalil really went for it. Bruce Lee-like he started spinning round at speed and whacking people about with the table legs we tore off. He gave us a full-on demonstration with impassioned B-movie sound effects thrown in –highly entertaining to me but not anyone else. One or two took him on but were whacked about at great speed and fell back fast. I just stood to the side, booted in study cubicles then kicked chairs about whilst watching Jalil take on anyone in his path. There was no end to the destruction but what got us caught was throwing hundreds of books out the windows and cheering each other on as we did. Teachers in the classes below came to see what the commotion was and why hundreds of books went flying past their windows. They didn’t take too kindly to seeing us have such a laugh whilst destroying the place, myself and Stuart together throwing away the shite we were supposed to read, seeing who could chuck the most out in one go. What came of that I can’t remember. It mattered not. ‘Scottish’ as I was known as was done with school anyway.

M J M