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BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 6:19 pm
by Alex Holowczak
On Saturday at the 4NCL, the Director of Home Chess passed on the original trophy for the BUCA Team Championship, dating back to 1947.

I then left it in Conference Room 17 on the Monday at home time, because I'm an idiot. :oops:

However, I have been reacquainted with the trophy, so all is well and good. Here are the teams that won it. It would be useful if those who know such things can provide the names of people who played in these teams, purely for interest's sake. I don't have a 60-year back catalogue of CHESS or BCM; I wasn't even alive for most of those years... Anyone with such a wealth of information who has the time to check these things would be appreciated.

Anyway, here are the winners, with the cumulative total of the number of times they've won in square brackets.

1947 Leeds
1948 Oxford
1949 Manchester
1950 Oxford [2]
1951 Oxford [3]
1952 Durham, Oxford [4]
1953 Birmingham
1954 Cambridge
1955 There's a space where a plaque should be, but there's no evidence that there has ever been a plaque here (i.e. there's no holes for screws) - did an event take place?
1956 Cambridge [2]
1957 London
1958 Cambridge [3], Glasgow, London [2]
1959 Oxford [5]
1960 London [3]
1961 Cambridge [4]
1962 Cambridge [5]
1963 London [4]
1964 Oxford [6]
1965 London [5]
1966 Cambridge [6]
1967 London [6]
1968 Oxford [7]
1969 Cambridge [7]
1970 London [7]
1971 Cambridge [8]
1972 Cambridge [9]
1973 Cambridge [10]
1974 Cambridge [11]
1975 London [8]
1976 Glasgow [2]
1977 Sheffield
1978 Leeds [2]
1979 London [9]
1980 Edinburgh
1981 Leeds [3]
1982 Oxford [8] (How did Oxford manage to go 14 years without winning it?!)
1983 Cambridge [12]
1984 Oxford [9]
1985 Oxford [10]
1986 London [10]
1987 Leeds [4]
1988 Cambridge [13]
1989 No space where a plaque should be; did an event happen this year?
1990 Cambridge [14]
1991 Nottingham

Then that's it. I know Nottingham was the last one of the old BUCA, so that makes sense. (At least, previous discussions on here have led to people saying they don't really know what happened after Nottingham won it.)

I can piece together some old winners from this. Did anything happen inbetween?

2001 Cambridge [15]
2002 Warwick
2003 Oxford [11]
2004 Oxford [12]
2007 Sheffield [2]
2008 I'm sure some sort of rapidplay event was held at Nottingham, with 8 teams attending?

And then, in the modern era:

2010 Bath
2011 Oxford [13]

So again, if people can help:
(1) Can anyone provide the names of the players in those teams? I imagine CHESSes might have that info in the BH Wood era. The names of the players in the teams are on the new trophy!
(2) Did anything happen between 1992 and 2010? Obviously something did, but I can't find any evidence of it.
(3) Any other information would be good too. :D (E.g. where the event was held; number of teams entering)

These will go on the BUCA website in due course.

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 6:46 pm
by Roger de Coverly
Alex Holowczak wrote:1969 Cambridge [7]
From Dragon May 1969, individual scores in brackets

1 RD Keene (2.5/4)
2 WR Hartston (3/4)
3 AH Williams (3.5/4)
4 RG Eales (2/4)
5 JFT Kirk O'Grady (3.5/4)
6 NJ Holloway (2.5/4)
7 BM Rothbart (2.5/4)
8 KL Escott (3.5/4)

The format in those days was two preliminary rounds with nominally equal strength pools, followed by two final rounds. All pairings were on a Jamboree system. There were 29 teams in all of eight boards each, which made for 4 pools of 7 or 8 and finals of 8/8/8/5.

Venue was a hall of residence "somewhere in Liverpool" during the Easter vacation.

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 6:49 pm
by Alex Holowczak
Ah, many thanks! KL Escott now plays in the Birmingham League and is graded 180 or so; so that's a pretty impressive team of 8! I don't suppose you can put first names to the others? (I know Keene, Hartston of course)

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 6:52 pm
by Jonathan Rogers
Nottingham 1991

1 Adam Collinson
2 Steve Dishman
3 Jonathan Rogers
4 Andrew Mack
5 Alex Tucker
6 David Neil

Andrew Mack captained.

Over the years, all the above would play at some point for Barbican in the 4NCL, except for David Neil who would frequently instead do the invaluable service of driving me there.

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 6:59 pm
by Alex Holowczak
In fact, I'm guessing:

1 Ray Keene
2 Bill Hartston
3 Alan Williams
4 Richard Eales
5 Julian Kirk-O'Grady
6 (not on grading database)
7 (not on grading database)
8 Keith Escott

Sound about right?

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 7:12 pm
by HLang
Alex Holowczak wrote:I can piece together some old winners from this. Did anything happen in between?
Yes. There was an event in Birmingham, in February 1998, won by Oxford on tie-break.

http://replay.web.archive.org/200003101 ... eruni.html
http://replay.web.archive.org/200003051 ... terUNI.htm

(Massive apologies for the backgrounds, but in everyone's defence the whole web looked like that back then.)

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 7:23 pm
by Roger de Coverly
Alex Holowczak wrote:Ah, many thanks! KL Escott now plays in the Birmingham League and is graded 180 or so; so that's a pretty impressive team of 8! I don't suppose you can put first names to the others? (I know Keene, Hartston of course)
Howard Williams
Richard Eales
Julian Kirk O'Grady
Nigel Holloway
Bernard Rothbart
Keith Escott

The 1971 event was held in July in Leeds, only 8 teams taking part. The Cambridge team was much the same as two years earlier, namely

1 RG Eales
2 AH Williams
3 JN (John) Sugden
4 NJ Holloway
5 BM Rothbart
6 JFT Kirk O'Grady
7 AG (Alan) Trangmar
8 R (Roger) Webb ( younger brother of the late Simon Webb)

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 7:29 pm
by Alex Holowczak
HLang wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:I can piece together some old winners from this. Did anything happen in between?
Yes. There was an event in Birmingham, in February 1998, won by Oxford on tie-break.

http://replay.web.archive.org/200003101 ... eruni.html
http://replay.web.archive.org/200003051 ... terUNI.htm

(Massive apologies for the backgrounds, but in everyone's defence the whole web looked like that back then.)
The first link doesn't load, but the second one seems to work. Any ideas of who was in the Oxford team?

The decline of Birmingham University Chess Club through the last 15 years is amazing:
1998 - organise this tournament (which seems successful)
2003 - criticised on the Warwick Uni website for a bad choice of format for their tournament
2007 - kicked out of the BDCL for not paying the entry fee or turning up to any matches
2010 - club completely lapsed

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 7:32 pm
by Eoin Devane
Alex Holowczak wrote:The first link doesn't load, but the second one seems to work.
It works here - just give it a bit of time. It looks to be the same as the other one, though, but without the notes at the bottom and with an even less attractive background colour!

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 7:41 pm
by Roger de Coverly
1970 BUCA (Chess May 1970)

This was held at the University of Manchester, Owens Park possibly (31 teams)

London were the winners, but only the surnames are given in the report. The full names are my recollections and might be wrong.

1 (Simon) Webb
2 AH (Alan) Perkins
3 H (Hugh?) McGrillan
4 ? Lipnowski
5 IA (Ian) Friedlander
6 ? Keely
7 P Hershman
8 ? Streets

The format was the same as 1969.

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 7:42 pm
by Ian Thompson
The 1981 event was held at Leeds University from 10-12 April.

The 1982 event was held in London from 5-8 April, but I don't remember which college it was at.

The 1981 Leeds team included Paul Botto on board 2 (I played him). John Hall would have been on board 1. Mark V Taylor was almost certainly on another board.

The 1982 Oxford team included William Watson on board 1 (I played him).

I believe at least one of the winning Leeds team is a lurker on this forum, so he now has an excellent opportunity to make his first post. :)

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 8:21 pm
by HLang
Alex Holowczak wrote:Any ideas of who was in the Oxford team?
Nope, sorry, I was playing for Manchester in that one.

Edit: And chose the nice green background, a misdemeanour for which I am truly sorry.

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 8:26 pm
by Alex Holowczak
HLang wrote:
Alex Holowczak wrote:Any ideas of who was in the Oxford team?
Nope, sorry, I was playing for Manchester in that one.
Ah, I assumed you were in the Oxford team, given you were in the winning Oxford teams of 2003 and 2004...

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 11:03 pm
by Colin Patterson
from CHESS (Easter 1966):

1966 Cambridge team:
WR Hartston
GM Sheldrick (nice initials!)
JDL Ball
B Hopewell
RG Lee
NJ Patterson
AT Ludgate
DJF Ewing

Held at College of Technology, Headington, Oxford
28 teams of 8 from 23 Universities. April 4-6. PJ Gregory organising.
At the AGM - BH Wood elected President for the nineteenth consecutive year.
Andrew Whiteley Hon Sec.
Bill Hartston Hon Treas.

Re: BUCA Team Championship Winners

Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 11:31 pm
by Colin Patterson
from CHESS (May 1968):

1968 Oxford team:
AJ Whiteley
R Holmes
G Clements
J Harouni
R Watson
J Ripp
D Openshaw
PSN Kendall (Paul, my old Wallsend CC teammate!)

Held at University College Swansea. April 2-10.
29 teams of 8.