John Saunders wrote:
Roger de Coverly wrote:
[Buckinghamshire] had reached the final of the Minor Counties the year before, losing to Herts. The only previous entries had been in 1983 losing in the Minor Counties final to Sussex and winning in 1981 against Devon 2. So with just four outings in over thirty years, there's no expectation of playing summer County chess.
Indeed. I recall playing in the 1981 Minor Counties Final, as will Roger. The 1981/82 BCF Yearbook (page 55) records it as such, being played in Bristol on 14 June 1981, with Bucks beating Devon II 12-4, and all the board scores given.
And yet every BCF/ECF Yearbook I have from 1997 onwards (I don't seem to have any between 1982 and 1997) fails to record this fact, starting the Minor Counties roll of honour from 1982. Is there any reason why it has been expunged from the record? If it was just an oversight, can it be restored?
How curious.
Buckinghamshire's 1981 victory is shown on the online record at
http://www.englishchess.org.uk/?page_id=16611, which would tend to support the cock-up theory.
However, conspiracy theorists will note the identity of the losing finalists, Devon 2. My memory of the competition goes back to 1985 and then, as now, only county first teams could take part.
So possibly the 1981 competition was experimental in nature, with the first "proper" competition in 1982 and the earlier one struck from the Yearbook records.
Over to Alex H to investigate as appropriate.
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