English Chess Forum

In the thread on the late PH Clarke, Gordon Cadden says this:

Gordon Cadden wrote:On a minor note, I believe that Peter, and his wife Margaret (Wood), hold the long distance travel record, for playing in a tournament within the British Isles. In 1995, they travelled from their home in Morwenstow, Cornwall, to take part in a tournament at Stornoway, Isle of Lewis.
Anyone care to challenge this record ?

I can offer a potential rival, though I'm not the claimant. In 1993 I won the championship of HASSRA, a civil service sports and social organisation. Contestants had won regional heats to qualify for the final (I was representing the London North region or something) and I'm pretty sure that the Scotland representative was from the Shetland Isles.

The final took place in Bedford and I'm not at all sure that Shetland-Bedford is further than Cornwall-Lewis, but (a) a glance at the map suggests it's pretty close and (b) if somebody in Shetland played at a tournament much further south (or south-west) of that, or indeed somebody made the reverse journey to play in Shetland, they would presumably take the title.

(I'll neglect crow-flies v distance-travelled issues until somebody comes up with specific examples.)

Back in 1977/78 an oil industry magazine sponsored a tournament for employees in that industry, organised by the BCF. Various regional qualifying events were held and finalists emerged of all standards - 200-ish at the top to ignorant of en passant at the bottom.
There was a Shetland area qualifier flown in and the event was held in central London. I remember it for the lavishness, including a large screen TV specially brought in for the Arsenal - Ipswich Cup Final, and the free bar, both of which brought in several strong kibitzers.

PB

Those two words beloved of chess-players 'free' and 'bar'......

My claim doesn't meet the 'within the British Isles' criteria but was all by car. I was with the England Team at the Glorney/Faber match in 2004 held at Aberdeen University. My son Matthew was coaching the England Team but needed to be in Davos for a tounament the day after the Glorney/Faber fininshed. I drove the 1,300 miles, via Dover - Calais ferry, and arrived the next day.

I can think of some very long chess journies made in the UK, even though the actual distance was not overly far

I wonder if one example is the same Shetlander... Jim Stallard played in the 1992 Civil Service championship in York, taking three days to travel in each direction. There was a story that travel by air was £9 more expensive than by car and ferry and the Civil Service Sports Council had refused to pay air fare, but Jim said it was convenient to travel the way he did.

I have done Redhill (Surrey) to Benbecula and Redhill to Isle of Lewis, so perhaps someone would like to run an Orkney congress to improve my longest distance! One Scottish player at Guernsey the other year travelled from Edinburgh but is originally from Orkney, but I guess that doesn't count.

Jim Stallard, that sounds right. Can't put my hand on the bulletin right now, and it was before-everything-was-on-the-internet, but he's at least potentially the titleholder.

Slightly off-topic, but I'm prompted by this thread to a memory of G H Bennett's attempt to effectively play in two events at once, c1973. I don't remember which locations were involved, but they must have been a fair distance apart. He finished the first week of a fortnight-long tournament (there still were a few, then) on a Friday afternoon in one place, drove like crazy to the other trying to reach it for the first game of a week-ender that same evening, missed the cut-off time and defaulted, won the other five games on the Saturday and Sunday, then returned for the second week of the first tournament starting on the Monday. Ridiculous!

I'm not aware of there ever having been any open chess tournaments in Orkney or Shetland (although Fetlar used to host the World Hnefatafl Championship).

There was some chess activity in Shetland in the early 80s - I remember a group coming down to congresses in mainland Scotland around that time (they seemed to have some sort of connection with Erik Teichmann for some reason). One of my team mates at BUCA 1982 in London was from Shetland, although he had only travelled from Edinburgh. Of no real relevance here, but as I said on another thread, I'm pretty sure the local Lerwick returning officer at the referendum is a(n ex-) chesser.

I played a Jim Stallard in 1993, but he was listed as Crowwood - presumably the same chap? I assume ES Campbell is the Orcadian now living in Edinburgh? I used to live round the corner from him in Kirkwall, although neither of us knew it at the time. Do the Channel Islands count as the British Isles? Politically, perhaps, but geographically/geologically?

As for distance, I think Cornwall-Lewis is comparable to Shetland-Bedfordshire, so it would depend on the location within the county. Morwenstow appears to be relatively far north, so I suspect Jim (if it is he) is winning at the moment.

"I played a Jim Stallard in 1993, but he was listed as Crowwood - presumably the same chap? I assume ES Campbell is the Orcadian now living in Edinburgh?"

Jim did move (back?) to the mainland subsequently, so probably. And yes.

I'm not sure we should include Channel Islands, we should definitely exclude Gibraltar, Falklands etc!

Alistair Campbell wrote:I'm not aware of there ever having been any open chess tournaments in Orkney or Shetland (although Fetlar used to host the World Hnefatafl Championship).

There was some chess activity in Shetland in the early 80s - I remember a group coming down to congresses in mainland Scotland around that time (they seemed to have some sort of connection with Erik Teichmann for some reason). One of my team mates at BUCA 1982 in London was from Shetland, although he had only travelled from Edinburgh. Of no real relevance here, but as I said on another thread, I'm pretty sure the local Lerwick returning officer at the referendum is a(n ex-) chesser.

I played a Jim Stallard in 1993, but he was listed as Crowwood - presumably the same chap? I assume ES Campbell is the Orcadian now living in Edinburgh? I used to live round the corner from him in Kirkwall, although neither of us knew it at the time. Do the Channel Islands count as the British Isles? Politically, perhaps, but geographically/geologically?

As for distance, I think Cornwall-Lewis is comparable to Shetland-Bedfordshire, so it would depend on the location within the county. Morwenstow appears to be relatively far north, so I suspect Jim (if it is he) is winning at the moment.

There was certainly a club in Shetland in the late 1970s or very early 1980s as they played in the National Club at least once thenabouts. I was Controller then and, rightly or wrongly, I opted to pair them against my own Norwich-based team. We played by phone at the BCF office (then in Norwich) over six boards. I misremember the result - I seem to recall it hinged on an adjudication involving Suzzane Wood for us where just over 30 moves had been played with nothing off the board yet.

As I recall the Shetland captain was a guy called Ken Beer (I think) who lived at Walls. We conversed on his willingness to take part in a BCF (i.e. British) event when unwilling to affiliate to Scotland as the Shetlanders were not Scots.

PB

Paul Buswell wrote:

As I recall the Shetland captain was a guy called Ken Beer (I think) who lived at Walls. We conversed on his willingness to take part in a BCF (i.e. British) event when unwilling to affiliate to Scotland as the Shetlanders were not Scots.

PB

Ken Beer - that's right. His wife (Sue?) played too. Some quick research suggests that there was a Shetland Chess Club last year at least, and Ken is still involved. I could comment on the Shetlanders/Scots angle, but perhaps not on this thread. Also off-topic, I once played in a golf tournament on Whalsay, and won a prize for the best scratch score by an "overseas" entrant, which was nice.