English Chess Forum

What are best available online and offline resources on the history of the country chess championships?

What I'm looking for is a historical record of which counties existed when and which fielded teams and which have not.

And a record of how the size of the teams have varied over time.

Might as well start with the first ever county chess matches. Which of the county chess associations formed first and when did they start playing chess against each other?

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:What are best available online and offline resources on the history of the country chess championships?

What I'm looking for is a historical record of which counties existed when and which fielded teams and which have not.

You could start with the SCCU archive http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/teamsad.htm

This shows the SCCU competition as pre-dating the formation of the British Chess Federation.

The ECF website has the national competition starting in 1908
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/?page_id=16611

http://www.mccu.org.uk/cmprevious/openroll.htm

http://www.mccu.org.uk/cmprevious/minorroll.htm

http://www.mccu.org.uk/cmprevious/gradedroll.htm

http://www.mccu.org.uk/cmprevious/otherroll.htm

http://www.mccu.org.uk/cmprevious/nationalroll.htm

Surrey CCA was formed in 1883 and we played 2 matches against Sussex in our first year (on Jan 19th 1884 in Croydon and on 3rd May 1884 in Brighton). Surrey won both matches and the record shows that although the 2nd match was played over 25 boards, Surrey won 24.5 to 17.5 (most players managed to play 2 games and both counted in the final score).

Chris

you might find some useful info, or at least a hint as to where to get it, here
http://www.manchesterchessfederation.co.uk/page63.html

Many thanks for all the advice and links. Does anyone know of published books that cover the subject (excluding BCF/ECF yearbooks)?

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: Does anyone know of published books that cover the subject (excluding BCF/ECF yearbooks)?

You might want to look out for Sergeant's "100 Years of British Chess" or similar title at second hand bookstalls, This was written around 1930 when the formation of the BCF and county associations would have been recent developments.

I just posted elsewhere, but specific to this topic.

Yorkshire vs Lancashire at Bradford 1871 according to "Chess" December 1945