Archive for October, 2025
My meme 31
Posted in Meme on October 17, 2025| Leave a Comment »
W. B. Dixon and updates
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on October 10, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Dear fellow chess players and enthusiasts from Bedfordshire, courtesy of his sustained efforts on his truly excellent website Britbase, archivist John Saunders has done what no one else has online and provided us with games from a reported former county champion of Bedfordshire. This means W. B. Dixon, formerly of Leighton Buzzard, becomes the first reported county champion who we have games for and can thus establish his chess playing prowess to some degree, and his successes further afield also.1
Who exactly was W. B. Dixon? I have twice posted about him,2 although I must say the evidence is rather depressing as he was indeed peripatetic but do click on the links in the footnote.
The exact page you need on John’s excellent site is already linked about but here it is again- Britbase. May I suggest you scroll down before you look at the games provided? Should you do so, you will note that W. B. Dixon not only did exceptionally well in the tournament he played in in Kent but also beat American champion H. N. Pilsbury in a simul. That game can be found as number 19.
N.B. Establishing exactly when the Bedfordshire County Championships began and who the first champion was is problematic as its inception has been left undocumented. There is a list of former county champions on Adrian Elwin‘s site, which can be found here –Former County Champions, however, this only begins in 1926/7. The local reportage in a previous post cites W. B. Dixon as county champion in 1906 and describes him as ‘the champion’, from which we must assume he was the current champion otherwise they would have described him as a former champion one would expect. How he also became champion of Buckinghamshire -I have no material pertaining to that. Until further evidence is uncovered, we can only state that W. B. Dixon is the first to be reported as county champion. We have no evidence that former multiple champion of London and participant in the Anglo-American cable matches as well as runner-up of the 1908 British Championships William Ward, was ever Bedfordshire County Champion.
In reaching out for further assistance on the English Chess Forum, further info on W. B. Dixon was provided by the knowledgeable contributor Jon D’ Souza-Eva
Pictures of his grave from the links above are shown below.
- There are only two games and in both a lack of king safety is abundantly clear and proves decisive. It is commonly argued that in Victorian times -from which the players involved emerged- chess was focused on attack and gambits much more than defence. Both games seem to lend support to that argument. ↩︎
- https://mccreadyandchess.com/2024/05/09/w-b-dixon-of-leighton-buzzard/
Regarding Our Clash of Future Champions, you will need to scroll down to find him.
https://mccreadyandchess.com/2016/02/12/our-clash-of-future-champions/ ↩︎
M J M
My meme 22
Posted in Meme on October 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Reflections 20
Posted in Reflections on October 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Only the good die young…
Not sure about you but I always preferred the peanut ones.
It’s probably human nature to like someone who seems a bit different, or at the very least, to take an interest in them. It’s true there weren’t many I encountered like that long ago, but some there were. And function as an exemplar at that stage in my life they did -and by that I mean I wanted to be like them in certain respects when I was young.
It’s also commonplace to like someone who shares the same interests as you, especially when you both dress the same way, have a similar background, have the same initials even, and you find them uplifting. This was true of Marcus Misson, who used to captain the Hunts & Peterborough county team in the 90s in the EACU. I took a liking to him for many reasons. Nowadays, I am mostly known as Marcus even though this is not my actual name (Mark is), although I should add this is only so informally, mostly amongst friends and colleagues. Many do like to change their name but he is the original inspiration behind that little namesake shift of mine, partially successful in reducing self-loathing some! 1 He used to have long hair tied back, as I did, he was my age also and a super-friendly guy. Working class like me and very extrovert -not at all your archetypal chess player. He always seemed to have a smile on his face and I liked how organized he was. Whenever I had the opportunity to chat to him I did for he had such great interest in everything and was very approachable. Because of this I looked up to him – as the county team captain- and often watched how he went about things with some admiration – as you do when you like someone, for example -how he would fill in results on the team sheets whilst on the go by standing and leaning on doors or walls for support whilst scribbling and chatting away quietly to team-mates unfussed by anything.
In 1992 I was into grunge and changed how I looked accordingly. I almost always wore either Nirvana T-shirts or cartoon based ones with another T-shirt underneath and some funky hand-me-down cardigan on top -much like Kurt Cobain used to. I also used to wear hairbands of different colours on my forearm and sometimes several of them -Marcus pointed that out once and thought it was cool as it was only us who had long hair that’s for sure (his blonde, mine brown, roughly the same length). We were both much younger than everyone when playing for the county and a bit more colourful than most you could say. My last recollection of him comes from that same year at Bedford Modern School, one Saturday afternoon in April I think it was.
Although long overdue, I recently chased up where he might be now only to find he died long ago and left a young family behind after succumbing to illness. Details of his life and how active he was can be found here: http://www.cambschess.co.uk/Special.php.
He even has a tournament named after him: http://www.adrianelwin.co.uk/EACU/GrandPrix.html
I am sure he is sadly missed by many “A lovely guy. Tragic” -Kevin Williamson. I am inclined to concur with Kevin here: for someone who loved his chess, was perspicacious and so upbeat all the time, that it is yes. 😦
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
- I should add that my home club also had someone called Marcus, who I was loosely friends with for many years. That’s all it was though. I did not look up to him and want to befriend him like I did with Marcus Misson. Most consider Marcus to be a Roman name, like in Marcus Aurelius for example. I don’t. It’s a chess name for me -positive, inspirational and an easy choice. ↩︎
You may find me on Lichess if you so wish…olc is a Gaelic word.
M J M
Cartoons anyone?
Posted in Chess on October 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »
My meme 20
Posted in Meme, My daughter on October 4, 2025| Leave a Comment »
My meme 18
Posted in Meme on October 3, 2025| Leave a Comment »
My meme 17
Posted in Meme on October 3, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Reflections 20
Posted in Reflections on October 3, 2025| Leave a Comment »
My opponent, Dennis Pawlek is an IM at draughts and the one able to provide documentation of when I played for England. As you can see, he is in some trouble in this game played on October 3rd 2019.
M J M
Moves I could never play 30
Posted in Moves I could never play on October 3, 2025| Leave a Comment »
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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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- 1982, myself versus Brian from Sunderland.
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