Tim Jones of the Times

[JustinHorton]

In his memoirs, Simon Hoggart claim that the newspaperman Tim Jones "was a fine chess player....his main problem as a chess player was finding anybody sufficiently challenging to play against".

Does anybody know if this is true? This would be around forty years ago.

[Roger de Coverly]

In his memoirs, Simon Hoggart claim that the newspaperman Tim Jones "was a fine chess player....his main problem as a chess player was finding anybody sufficiently challenging to play against".

Does anybody know if this is true? This would be around forty years ago.

I know a Tim Jones who has recently retired from The Times and so could have have a contemporary of Hoggart. He was good enough to play on the The Times team in celebrity simuls against Kasparov etc.. I don't think he was ever as good as other newspaper people such as Dan Johnson or Dominic Lawson. In fact you can look him up on the ECF grading site where his current grade qualifies him as club standard.

I expect Hoggart's comment just says that a club standard player cannot be distinguished from a grandmaster by a non-player or even a social or casual one.

[JustinHorton]

Thanks very much. Do you know which of the four Tim or Timothy Joneses it is?

I'd guess your last comment was quite right.

[Roger de Coverly]

Thanks very much. Do you know which of the four Tim or Timothy Joneses it is?

The one I know is http://grading.bcfservices.org.uk/getre ... ef=258553E

[JustinHorton]

Ta.

[timothy jones]

I am indeed the Tim Jones referred to, enjoying gentle retirement in Marlow and playing for the Borne End chess club. Simon Hoggart is quite right in stating I could not find worthy opponents during my wild and drunken days in Fleet Street. But it was hardly a challenge for as they say: "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king."
Quite true, I was never in the same league as Johnson although, the only game we ever played ended in a draw. !! I recall he employed the Berlin Defence and somehow lost his way - probably through over confidence.
In spite of my lowly position, my life long love of chess persuaded The Times to send me to Iceland to cover the great chess match. I have a match programme signed by Fischer which I treasure.
Although Kasparov is generally regarded as the greatest chess genius of all time I believe Fischer to be the King because, unlike Kasparov he did not have the benefit of search engines. Discuss.!
It was, of course, inevitable the Fischer, the bad, mad genius should die on his 64 birthday. Somehow, it just had to be.

[Gordon Cadden]

How splendid that the subject of this thread should make an appearance. Have just been browsing through my Fischer/Spassky Scrapbooks, and have read your reports from Reykjavik.
A great event reported by a great gathering of chess journalists, professional and amateur; Harry Golombek, John Crosby (one of your boozy Fleet Street friends?), Baruch H. Wood, Robert Wade, John James, Jon Akass, Jon Mossman, Edith Teague, Gerald Abrahams, Mary Kenny, Harold Schonberg, Leonard Barden, David Levy, David Spanier, Michael Lake, Arthur Koestler, Roy Perrott, Maurice Weaver, Colin Dunne, Clement Freud, Michael Thompson Noel, Christine Verity, Francis Wyndham, Frederick Colbert, John Edwards, Roy Blackman, David Caute, Michael McDonagh, Roy Perrott, Andrew McEwen, Roy Blackman, Ian Wooldridge, etc. A large number of Fleet Street journalists had become "chess experts" overnight. I will leave the merits of Fischers greatness to another Forum member. He was certainly the greatest chess publicist of all time. But then, the bad guys always get the publicity.

[timothy jones]

In Iceland I shared a flat with the great Golombek who did not take kindly to my boozing and general pursuit of the beautiful Icelandic women. I do not think David Spanier was ever there because we played many games of chess together when we were on The Times and I usually got the better of him which is astonishing given that he became the chess correpondent of The Daily Telegraph. He was a good man who epitomised brilliantly chutzpah at its most brilliant. Given the beatings I gave him I had to take off my hat to him when he published, in 1984, his book Total Chess which claims ...."contains everything you you ever wanted to know about the fascinating world of chess."
You miss the point when you refer to Fleet Street hacks becoming chess experts. The story was much bigger than the moves over the board.
I was one of the very first hacks to arrive in Reykjavik and the Times carried a front page story be which began: "The stage is set but the demon King is missing." The next few flights into town carried most the the people you mention. I tried to interview Fischer and knocked on the door of his suite. "Mr Fischer, my name is Tim Jones of the London Times - can you please spare a few minutes for a chat"?
His reply I will never forget. It was: "Shove off jerk." !!

[Simon Spivack]

David Spanier ... became the chess correpondent

Is he dispatch'd? I think so.

A byline will not name a ghost, but a spectre may inherit a column.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Gordon.

The scrap book sounds fascinating.

Your extensive list does not include the foreign journalists.
I was on a tour of Europe at the time and followed three quarters
of the the match in the German, Belguim, Dutch and French newspapers.

It was easy to see which papers covered the match his picture
was always on the front page.

Perhaps Tim could give us an idea of how many journalists from all
over the world were there.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I believe that D Spanier is indeed deceased.

"Total Chess" was a good read - he admitted in the intro that he wasn't a great player - precisely because it had very little actual chess in it!!

[Simon Spivack]

Is he dispatch'd?

I believe that D Spanier is indeed deceased.

A condition he arrived at less expeditiously, I trust, than Banquo.

My question is from the Scottish Play and is rhetorical.

If Tina Fey can see Russia from her window, I can recognise ghosting.

[timothy jones]

Sadly, David Spanier died at too young an age of a heart attack but not as young as another "chess expert" who was also there - namely David Young of the Daily Mail who fell off a mountain in Scotland.
How many hacks were there? Hard to say but the were as thick as leaves on the ground following an autumn gale. Certainly, among the Fleet Street mob at least, very little chess was discussed in the hotel bars of Reykjavik for the good reason the moves on the 64 squares were as mysterious to them as the sexual proclivities of an orangutan.
At that time, the Icelandic authorities had come up with a really brilliant idea to curb excessive drinking. They had banned the sale of beer which meant only spirits could be purchased.!!! No wonder the banks went broke. I tried on one occasion to have one local banned for obnoxious, drunken and offensive behaviour from the bar at the Loftlieder hotel were Fischer stayed but was never seen. I was told it was not possible as he was the Justice Minister.
Spassky, the great gentleman, was hard to approach as he was always shadowed by big guys who may have been KGB. Were they there to protect him or to prevent him from defecting. ?Who knows. Edwards of the Daily Mail got closest because his hotel balcony was next to Spassky's.
I remember the real chess experts, Golombek, Gligoric, Evans etc were very unamused by our antics and could never understand why we were more interested in stories about Fischer's chair being bugged than the sensation of him deviating from his "best by test" E4.
It is sad that my chess club is used mainly by ageing old farts like me. Bad as he was, mad as he was, we need another Fischer to get another generation of young people interested in our beautiful game.