At Last! The 1961 Grading List...

[John Saunders]

Downloads for all the British Championship games for the 1960s appear on BritBase on this page, except for 1960, 1961 and 1964 when I don't think bulletins were produced. Though I would love to be proved wrong about that: does anybody know better? I am systematically working my way through British Championships at BritBase, adding games, game viewers, crosstables, results and the occasional photo. I have worked my way from 1904 to 1951 so far and I will come to 1966 within a few weeks. In my database I have only 23 games for 1960, 29 for 1961 and 45 for 1964, so if anyone has any games or material for those years in particular I would be very grateful. I have already given the years 1967-69 a full make-over, with game viewers and full results, in order to coincide with a series of articles I wrote for CHESS.

[John Saunders]

Ray Collett has also sent me the 1963-64 West of England Chess Union Grading List, in PDF format. I have uploaded it to BritBase here. It is a bit hard to read in places: I have done the best I can to improve the contrast of the scan and to remove the greyness of the background.

[John Saunders]

I've revived this thread as I have published another old grading list on BritBase.

http://www.saund.co.uk/rgs/pdfs/viewer. ... nglist.pdf

This is the 1954 BCF Grading List as published in CHESS Magazine, 27 November 1954, pages 119-121, with some editorial comments appended by B.H. Wood. I've scanned it in, applied a few minor amendments to typos, and decoded the old-style grading categories.

Not too many of those names are still with us. But a few are - Penrose, Barden, Franklin, Cafferty, Gibbs, Sunnucks, Farrand, for starters. Hope people enjoy this further trip down memory lane.

[Later edited to include LWB]

[Michael Farthing]

Ummmm, John!!!! There's a cetain 2a player not only with us but a member of our august Forum. What has happened to L W Barden?

[David Sedgwick]

Former BCF President J Poole is another still with us.

And is M Rose (Glasgow) the same person as the well known M Rose (Athenaeum)?

[John Saunders]

Oops! I thought I had written Leonard's name in that little list. Sorry, Leonard!

[John Saunders]

Chris Howell points out that Jim (JB) Howson is still around and still playing good chess. I think he's around 85.

[Leonard Barden]

Oops! I thought I had written Leonard's name in that little list. Sorry, Leonard!

I did check to make sure I was still breathing.....

[John Moore]

Chris Howell points out that Jim (JB) Howson is still around and still playing good chess. I think he's around 85.

Jim played on Wednesday night for Writtle in the top of the table Essex League clash against Wanstead and won a good game on Board 8 against a player graded 162.

[Julie Denning]

Down in the 5a group is L J (John) Cannon, who is still an active player and Chairman of Horsham Chess Club. He's shown as "Newcastle" in the 1954 list, which will have been during his university days. Amongst his achievements has been over 500 appearances in County Championship matches.

[John Clarke]

Quite a few familiar names there, one or two of whom I played back in the day (some little time after 1954, though!), with fortunes that were mixed to say the least.

Interesting to see a US Air Force sergeant among the 3b's. Would that be the Ken Smith who went on later to write a number of openings monographs, and even got his name attached to the Smith-Morra Gambit?

[Leonard Barden]

Quite a few familiar names there, one or two of whom I played back in the day (some little time after 1954, though!), with fortunes that were mixed to say the least.

Interesting to see a US Air Force sergeant among the 3b's. Would that be the Ken Smith who went on later to write a number of openings monographs, and even got his name attached to the Smith-Morra Gambit?

That was indeed the same Ken Smith. I played him in the 1953 British Lightning Championship, which he attended in his USAF uniform.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Yes, fascinating reading, especially for those whose memories go back that far.

For me, it's like a snapshot of the chess scene on the eve of the English Chess Explosion. Of the famous Harrachov quartet (who beat the Russians 3-1 in the 1967 Student Team Championships), only Whiteley is in there, at 5a. (At just 14 years old, he'd placed =2-5 in the 1961 British under-18. The title-winner that year, R A Beach, is in 5b and hasn't improved much in the past year. Yet he beat J E Scholes - rated a whole grade higher - in a finely-played last-round game, and pipped both him and Whitley for first place. Shows how little ratings can mean sometimes.)

The North-East is severely under-represented; only about half a dozen in the whole list. I don't know about adult players, but prominent juniors of the time from that area included B Kooiman and K P Neat, neither of whom is listed.

As for my own locality, one or two names are missing whom I'd have thought would have been active and rated highly enough to be included. J S Capes and H M Lawrence, both Enfield regulars, also G J Martin, one-time British Championship contender. Maybe the North Circular and Barnet Leagues just didn't bother with gradings in those days.

Typo on p14: the sub-heading "M.C.C.U." should read "N.C.C.U.".

One of the mysteries above may have been solved!

John asked above why "G J Martin, one-time British Championship contender" is missing from this grading list.

I suspect the reason is that he had decamped to the USA in 1957 and it seems has stayed there ever since!

See the chain of evidence here:

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=13465&start=15#p296237

It seems likely that the player seen in his youth here:

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/win ... ml#CN_5639

Became the eminent professor and archivist of American geography here:

https://www.aag.org/aag-archivist-geoff ... geography/

Hence explaining him dropping out of the grading lists. Which would be quite some story!

[John Clarke]

It looks as though I dived down a rabbit-hole and turned up a mare's nest! (My entry for the Jim Hacker Mixed Metaphors competition. )

The Martin I was thinking of in posting that query was, it's now clear, a different one from G J Martin. (My thanks to Mr Kreuzer for helping to establish this.) He was a strong player all right – about 180 BCF or so when I first became acquainted with him c1967 - though never near 3b as far as I'm aware. We all knew him as Joe Martin, but he was actually Polish, so couldn’t have been “G J”. The ages don't match either - Joe was in his fifties at the time, and G J was about twenty years younger. The name might possibly have been anglicised, but I can’t be sure.

Joe played regularly in the North Circular Chess League, representing the Ferguson Thorn club, and that’s why I might have expected to see him in that grading list. But, as I remarked, there were several other likely names missing as well. (BTW: the original link to the list appears now to be broken.)

The confusion came about because Joe once remarked to me that he’d played in the British Championship. I now think he may have been referring to one of the qualifying competitions, rather than the Championship proper. As I’ve said, he was pretty good, but when even players of 190-plus could be found occupying the bottom places, I don’t think he was quite up to the required standard.