Documented on this site some nine years ago was Blackburne’s visit to Bedford in 1891. Please note, I have discovered reportage which gives a more detailed account of that evening and is well worth a read. It is a substantial improvement on what was previously posted -content-wise. Enjoy.
MJM
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Sincere apologies for not being methodical and explaining who F. Dickens is. I’ve lost count of the number of posts that he appears in on this site, so please do scroll through the History of Bedfordshire Chess section or just search for his name in the search bar. I can’t link all posts here, I would be swamped. Exploration is better than picking up on some synopsis.
Anyway, here is reportage of him performing a simul, showing his favourite game to his audience and boasting about his win over the world champion E. Lasker (understandable as I too would boast if I had beaten the world champion!). Okay, perhaps he didn’t boast and was just proud of himself, how can we tell….oh it says he was ‘modest’, doesn’t it?
We may wish to reflect upon Mr. F. Dickens’s, the schoolmaster from Kensworth, favourite game and what can be gleaned from it. Establishing how popular that game in particular was in his day is rather tricky but it is safe to say it was indeed well publicized and thus well known, as it is today. We could argue it was already dated back then and question how up to date he was with chess events but let’s not go there…perhaps its better to ask how well read was he? Since I cannot criticize anyone who has played chess for Luton in the past, let’s leave it there!
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Are you into the sort of game where one of the very best in the world gets absolutely massacred by a devastating sacrifice? Do you like watching kings run for cover in the middle game with resignation being the only form of escape?
Game 1 Beliavsky V Nunn, Wijk Aan Zee 1985
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1103322
Game 2 Plaskett V Miles, Lugano 1985
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1097818
Mark. J. McCready
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How old is Leighton Buzzard chess club? Don’t ask me, I’m not that old! But we can now say with certainty it was there in 1880, as the reportage below shows.
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As was spelled out in the following post https://mccreadyandchess.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/bedfordshire-chess-in-the-70s-its-past-and-its-future/ as far back as the late 50s and early 60s the youth of Bedfordshire were playing competitive chess at school and trickling into the Bedfordshire league as a result. To claim the rise in popularity of chess amongst the youth was part of the so called nationwide ‘English chess explosion’, which followed on from the success of Fischer is a mistake easily disproven. That was principally a 70s phenomenon which impacted our county later down the line.
Here we have evidence from 1961 that schools in Bedfordshire were competing against each other and attracting publicity in the process. Not only playing against other schools in our county but also schools outside it. As the reportage states, this was not the first instance and we can safely say almost certainly not the last.
Earlier that year, reportage shows that county and Junior County Matches were held simultaneously at the same venue. This suggests that senior figures within the county were involved in housing events together. I shall await further clarification on this matter (if possible).
With regards to the Bedfordshire league, there is reportage reporting that in 1961 BMS were already participating.
Bedford Modern School also participated in the national schools championship in 1961.
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Ever wondered who won the Bedfordshire League in 65? Read on.
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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.
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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.
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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’.
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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!
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| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | |
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.
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