It would appear I am not the only Lutonian to have a marriage brought about by chess.
I should also add that Dennis and I share teammates and I am assured under circumstances containing no doubt whatsoever that Dennis suffered from Polio, which he contracted after drinking from a cracked cup at the ground of Luton Town football club. It was his work on polio that would lead to him receiving a C. B. E in 1988. I should also add that there is a further question pertaining to the reportage, that being that he did not in fact meet his wife at Hastings but rather at the British Championships, where they are both documented as participating in.
My home town Luton not only had its own league but also its own schools league simultaneously. Whereas reportage of the Luton league appears in several other posts, evidence of the schools league can be found below. If only it were true today!
It should be noted that at the bottom of the column the initials T.W.S are Tom Sweby’s, who was a science teacher at Challney Boys School, appearing in the league table above.
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’.
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 belowbut 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!
…history as a constantly moving process, with the historian moving within it…
E. G. Carr – What is history? p. 153
Within the chess world, to compare players of different generations and eras is treated with suspicion, thus deemed inadvisable and ill-judged. This is not the time nor the place to delve into the very great many reasons why. It is not my intention to do so here, however, I do wish to draw attention to the point that the tendency to evaluate players purely in terms of their rating and title can be broadened oh-so-slightly.
I have recently posted regarding the strongest players to have played chess within Bedfordshire, on a number of occasions, and thought that it may be of interest to readers who are more interested in their world rankings, with questions such as ‘Who across time achieved the highest world ranking ever?’. Generally, I am reluctant go down this path for a number of reasons, primarily because I believe narrative should remain synchronic, however, I have done it anyway. I have added sufficient information so that mistakes regarding interpretation cannot be made so easily.
Number 1 – William Ward
Recorded playing in Bedfordshire 1896.
Highest ever world ranking 56 *Classified as unofficial as FIDE did not exist then (historically estimated).
Recorded playing in Bedfordshire 73-80 (approx.) (untitled until 1981)
Highest ever world ranking 100
Year 1985
Rating 2495
So there you have it, if you want to know who played in Bedfordshire and gained the highest ever world ranking, now you know.
The craving for an interpretation of history is so deep-rooted that, unless we have a constructive outlook over the past, we are drawn either to mysticism or to cynicism.
F. Powicke, Modern Historians and the Study of History (1955) p. 174
“The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”
F. Nietzsche
One day in the distant future, the times we live in will most likely be described historically as part of the 4th revolution, or the digital revolution, which shapes how we gain and store information, amongst many other things.
Even me the academic that once was, concedes we do things differently now to when I was young. Through social media and ‘chat’ I have acquired knowledge which in itself can be placed into a narrative for further discourse on the history of Bedfordshire chess -something very close to my heart.
My very own research has revealed that Dennis Victor Mardle was the first from Bedfordshire to represent England but was he the only one to do so? I contacted GM James Plaskett on facebook, this is what I sent via Messenger.
The reply James gave me was as follows:
CIR Benedict, 1979
Telex match Vs Iceland, 1981
Lucerne World Team Championship, 1985
GM Plaskett was, then, the second from Bedfordshire to represent his country, however, there is a difference. Dennis, the first, played for England in England in a national match once only whereas James, the second, represented England abroad in an international tournament, helping England to achieve the Bronze medal 1 upon his third appearance. With certainty we can say that GM Plaskett’s representation of his country is, therefore, of greater significance for our purposes. His games are documented, notably his victories for England can be found here 2 and here 3, and the tournament as a whole here 4.
Interestingly, James won both games with the Benko Gambit, the games are quite interesting.
Round 1. After 28. … Nd3.
Round 3. After 27. … Qe3.
Should this not be enough to persuade you of my claims, I shall add also that as a senior, GM Plaskett went on to represent England 6 more times!
Dresden 3 times
Rhodes 1 time
Vilnius 1 time
Crete 1 time
Unfortunately, locating game information is proving tricky. I shall add when I find it… .
“The beast lives unhistorically; for it ‘goes into’ the present, like a number, without leaving any curious remainder.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the advantage and disadvantage of history for life
Old Tom Sweby’s former playing partner, friend, and team mate Dennis Victor Mardle, was the first from Bedfordshire to represent England, and the only from Luton. Even though William Ward, who participated in the (1896-1911) Anglo-American cable matches numerous times did indeed play for Luton before moving to London, he is in fact from Abotts Langley, Hertfordshire.
Once again I am indebted to John Saunders and his excellent site Britbase for the latest discovery, and indeed it does appear that on the back of Mardle’s success on the circuit in 59, come late October, he was asked to step up to the mark and play for England in a match against the Dutch, please see below:
You may find the link here 1. Please note that Dennis Mardle is well documented on this site and for further information, please follow the instructions below.
Go to Categories on the right-hand side of the site, select the option highlighted below:
J. M. Craddock the schoolboy champion who took down those bigger than he
“History is on every occasion the record of that which one age finds worthy of note in another.” J. Burckhardt
There is no record uncovered where a Bedfordshire based player achieved recognition or success on a national or international level between 1910 and 1950. The only attention our county drew was courtesy of the chess scene in Luton and the high-profile simuls they arranged, attracting the likes of Blackburne (1905), Lasker (1908), Meises (1913) Tartakower (1918), Capablanca (1918), and Reti (c.1922). Yes its true a few of our homegrown talent achieved victories but this is hardly noteworthy (should you be interested you can find some of those victories on my site). But in the 50’s, according to our local columnist Tom Sweby, a certain J. M. Craddock was based in Dunstable and played board 1 for Bedfordshire (see fig 18. ‘Bedfordshire chess in the 70’s; its past and its future’). Who was J. M. Craddock? Once again there is a paucity of information, however, both Britbase and the ECForum enable us to fill in the blanks somewhat. The following is from Britbase:
We only have one game surviving from his time in Bedfordshire, comments are from Tom Sweby.
‘When Bedfordshire played Oxfordshire in the Counties Chess Championship in January a much-admired victory was that of Beds leader, J. M. Craddock, over R. J. A. Persitz, the Israeli international and Oxford first board. Craddock, who was Cambridge University champion in 1934, and who now lives at Dunstable, has again shown his strength by beating Raaphi Persitz in the Counties’ Correspondence Championship. As Mr. Craddock rarely plays nowadays, few outside his Bedfordshire colleagues would have anticipated this fine “double” and the accuracy of his play brought from Persitz the comment “Very well played!” (I am indebted to W. G. Everitt for the score of the game which went 1. c4 c5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 d5 4. cd5 Nd5 5. Bg2 Nc7 Craddock played his own 6. f4 (see diagram) and in view of Black’s subsequent difficulties it seems that in this line he should fianchetto his KB on moves 3 and 4 and avoid the central thrust, at least until White plays Nf3 [Up to this point the game had followed one between Kirilov and world champion Botvinnik. In that White continued 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. 0-0 e5]
With regards to retrospective ratings, we can find J. M. Craddock here,1. Craddock is remembered most for his achievements in the 30’s, some 20 years or so before he represented Bedfordshire. His victory over Mir. Sultan Khan in 1933 was rather daring in play it must be said!
As a young chess player, stories about Luton chess club and the Bedfordshire league were told and retold many times over the years by various club members, as you might expect. But I distinctly remember the man who beat me in the final of the 92 Luton Chess Championship once told me that ‘Luton used to have its own league once!’ whilst we drove in the dark along country lanes to another club match together. What records have survived do not show this to be true but then not all divisions in the Bedfordshire league were published in The Luton News by Tom Sweby on a yearly basis -and that is the only primary source material in play here. What Grandmaster slayer Mr. P. Montgomery may have meant instead as he drove, I think, was in the wake of the commonly described ‘The English Chess Explosion’ following the Fischer – Spassky match, Luton dominated the Bedfordshire league in terms of registered clubs, and also had enough teams to create its own league -of this there is no doubt. There were working men’s clubs for the employees of the parent company, long before the so called ‘English Chess Explosion’ but when chess started booming thereafter they flourished and all were able to field teams in the league, sometimes more than one. Vauxhall, which was reported in the local news as early as 1937 (please see https://mccreadyandchess.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/bedfordshire-chess-in-the-70s-its-past-and-its-future/ for proof) had three teams at one point (no prizes given for correctly guessing which player, who went on to play for both Luton & Kent’s/Luton years later on, once brought his electric guitar to Vauxhall chess club and began playing it whilst games commenced, only to be taken outside and get beaten up in the snow by Dave Considine [also former Kents/Luton player, rated around 140-150]!). (Clue provided here in point 3: https://mccreadyandchess.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/fond-memories-of-bedfordshire-chess/)
The Luton News, September 18th 1980The Luton News, October 9th 1980
As is shown above Vauxhall attracted the most players and was the first to establish itself as more than a host of league matches. SKF had a team on Sundon Park Road also, and how could we forget Kents (meters)? Commer and AC Delco (Dunstable) Texas Instruments (Bedford) and Scicon (Milton Keynes) also had teams and participated in the league too but hard evidence of those is proving difficult to locate (I do have it somewhere!). Contrarily, Electrolux on Oakley Road Leagrave also had its own club, and for the following information regarding its short-lived existence, I am indebted to former Luton player Peter Gayson’s first hand account:
Regarding our chat online Peter said ‘…before that I played occasional games for Electrolux (the club started by my dad), but school/university limited the opportunities…‘
I then enquired: ‘So may I ask, it was your father who started The Electrolux cub as you said? Was that based on Oakley Road, Leagrave?’
Peter replied: ‘Yes, my dad worked at Electrolux in Oakley Road. He started the club right after the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match. There was huge interest at first, but gradually players drifted away, and the club eventually folded later in the decade.‘
I then prompted him further with the following: ‘May I ask, what position did your dad have in the company? Can you remember exactly where they played in the factory grounds and why? Was it always your father that ran it?’
Peter kindly answered with the following: Dad (George Gayson, 1928-1999) was a fridge paint sprayer at Electrolux, who worked there from the late 50s up to retirement. He started the club in 1972. Attendance was pretty good in the early days, with around 40-50 members, but gradually tailed off, and the club folded around 1978-1979. Play was in the Electrolux recreation club, run by Luton FC’s Billy Waugh ( he once introduced me to Joe Payne, one of the club’s famous players, who also worked at Electrolux). I believe the club once hosted a simul by Canadian GM Duncan Suttles, possibly arranged by Brian Cox. After the club folded, I joined Luton chess club, back when it was in the church hall in Bury Park.
With regards to the aforementioned simul, Peter has informed me he did play in it, and I do have proof of its reportage.
The Luton News, date uncertain
With regards to the footballers mentioned, it can easily be confirmed that they did indeed play for the hatters with the following links:
…on what this site initially became…on what this site is now becoming…on what this site cannot become…
On what this site initially became…
…once upon a time, the chess-related musings of an adrift academic were bound playfully and electronically in this online journal of sorts. They grew and grew as the decade did too. I kept on because I love to write whether I had much to say or not; therefore, being read by others was usually of little or no importance, comparatively speaking. Content was based on personal thoughts and experience on various topics with no intended audience borne in mind. With topics broadening, my own take on things always shaped the narrative I constructed: I often thought I was insightful but never that I was right. Sometimes imagination gave rise to originality: and of that I have always remained proud. I often introduced humour, believing that I am funnier than I really am. Sometimes, I found my own style antithetical to the conservatism I believe chess is plagued by -oftentimes that has put a gracious smile on my face… .
On what this site is now becoming…
…this site is now becoming a collaboration of chess in Bedfordshire: much more so of the past than the present -that has become the dominant trend. I document the history of chess in Bedfordshire as much as I can, and as time has passed I have become more thorough and resourceful. However, I am not a trained historian as my background lies principally in philosophy but yes it is true I did study some modules on history as both an undergraduate and a post-graduate too; furthermore, I have trained myself up, particularly in terms of postmodern history. Since 2015, I have only read history and historiography as well as those philosophers who have been so influential on postmodern history, such as Nietzsche (whom I once wrote a 19,000 word dissertation on, entitled: Can the Will to Power be Found in The Birth of Tragedy?), also Richard Rorty and Foucault and I suppose certain structualists such as Claude Levi-Strauss too. Regarding postmodernism, mostly I keep to Hayden White, Keith Jenkins and Alan Muslow.
Some friends and former playing partners back home describe me as the ‘go to guy’ for the history of chess in Bedfordshire. This compliment says more about the lack of interest in the subject than my own endeavour. As mentioned, I am too adrift from academia to feel chuffed by it. Rather, I tend to lament that my historical research, like my chess, just isn’t what it should be. Even though I may well have a broad understanding of Bedfordshire chess history courtesy of the volume of research put into it, all of which began in 2014, this is not something I am particularly proud of. Nonetheless, out of courtesy compliments are graciously received. If the truth be told, I just see it as my job and only that – after all someone’s got to do it and no one else is that interested!
Amongst the many others, I have created three categories: ‘Bedfordshire Chess’ and ‘History of Bedfordshire Chess’ and ‘Luton Chess Club’. This website is slowly moving towards a consolidation of those (all of which can be found in one of the toolbars to the right).
On what this site cannot become…
…I like to be both creative and amusing when I can be, factor in that playfulness has been an ever-present factor, the content of this site should be thought of as multifarious. It could be said I continue to enjoy undermining the conservatism I believe chess is underpinned by even after all these years, and often try to use humour to do it still, believing I have got better at it. Consequently, despite the general direction its going in, this site cannot only be about Chess in Bedfordshire and nor will it be. It may become noted for that yes -in fact that’s been the case for years already even by established historians, archivists, and whoever else. External factors aside, this site is titled McCreadyandChess. I cannot, nor will I not, remove my own personal thoughts and experiences of chess from the posts of this site -especially if I think they are funny or original for they constitute my writing at its very, very best. In addition, the number of categories alone tells you that breadth of content is important to me. I am proud of my site, it is identity conferring and that is how it shall stay -end of story. All you really have are: ‘Some thoughts on the beautiful game’, which, incidentally, just happen to be my very own; nothing more, nothing less, take of it whatever you please… .
A side note on how to read old Tom Sweby's columns
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.
Gallery
I’m either 10 or 11 here
1982, myself versus Brian from Sunderland.
At the Thai Junior chess championships. My daughter of course.
Pattaya 2011
2011
Thai Junior Championships
2008
2011
Around 2011
2011
Pattaya 2009
2011
Kuwait 2008
2012
2012
2011 BKK Chess club
2011
2011 Thai Open
2011 Thai Open
2013 approx
Around 2014
2010
2012
Around 2011
2011
2011
2013
Around 2011
Around 2011
2020
2011
2008
2011
2013 or thereabouts
2010
2017
2014?
2010
2024
2024
2024
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