You may have noticed I recently deleted two posts documenting the rivalry between clubs in the Bedfordshire League in the late 70s and early 80s. 54 emails later and additional help has clarified what contributor Nick McBride told me. I’m now in a position to tackle the issue courtesy of the additional contact second contact -who shall remain nameless.
I am not naming names nor naming clubs. All I will do is list the clubs and list the tactics employed. You can decide which club did what if you don’t already know. It should give you an overview of what a difficult league the Beds. Chess league once was back when punk was trendy, strikes were nationwide and mods hated rockers. Okay, clubs first:
- Vauxhall
- Luton
- Kents
- Scion
- B.M.S
- Bedford
- Leighton Buzzard
- Dunstable
- Milton Keynes
- Northampton
I shall now list the tactics employed. you can decide the answers yourself.
- Brought a sub for every match who’s real job was to sneak out and let down all the tires on all cars for the opposing teams.
- Chanted loudly outside the premise ‘hit him on the head, hit him on the head, hit him on the head with a baseball bat oh yeah’, and would then enter swinging baseball bats about.
- Threatened to firebomb their portacabin during the match if they didn’t let us win every time.
- Would announce three Siberian Women Grandmasters were joining their team tonight if they had made their connecting flight. But instead three prostitutes would turn up and lose their games quickly but wait to leave together with the three male members.
- Would bang down clocks with fists, standing up to do it, then start delivering quotes from ‘Rocky’, usually about ‘bustin’ ass’ whilst shadow boxing in front of his opponent.
- Would hit your neck with paper aeroplanes or scrunched paper balls which flew around the playing venue every few minutes or so. Occasionally your ear was pinged by an elastic band moving at high speed.
- Put in a very heavy drinking session before the match began then all sang the same songs in the opening, and always out of synch and badly sung, sometimes with some air guitar also.
- Smashed a car window every time a player from their team lost and spray painted opening suggestions on opposing team members cars.
- Brought in Karate experts from the hall next door to point out which boards we were losing on and persuade him to chop the board in half to get the game cancelled.
- Smoked copious amounts of marijuana during matches and stunk out the place knowing opponents would become so fed up they would resign and leave.
Okay that is as far as I go with this. I’d prefer to portray my own chess league in a more positive light since I am so proud of it but if these things went on and two witnesses are assuring me of it, well I have to go with it. I’ve known them both for thirty years, they are both honest men so who am I to say none of this can be true. Once again, I’m not naming names and will not do so if asked. The more established members of the Beds chess league will know the answers anyway…
That’s all for now. I prefer to promote not discourage so please bear in mind, the content above didn’t go past 1986. You won’t see any such business like that nowadays. It’s all safe and sound. If there’s any funny business going on just message me about it and I’ll fly in and start kicking some arse.
Do enjoy your evening.
Mark
McCreadyandChess 