English Chess Forum

Lancashire have their biggest city taken away from them in Manchester. (Not that I want to open that can of worms; I'm just saying their population is cut dramatically by losing it.)

I was under the impression that Yorkshire only pick ECF members for county games, and thus half of their number can't play.

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February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

Rubbish, they have just lost an U100 semi by fielding a Manchester player who was ineligible on grading - Lancs believe that the city of Manchester is in Lancashire and pick players accordingly

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Any postings on here represent my personal views and should not be taken as representative of the Manchester Chess Federation

You miss the point. Lancashire can't pick as many players from Manchester as they would claim they're able to, on account that many will have already played for Greater Manchester in the MCCU stages.

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February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

If Yorkshire used that criteria only a very few percent of their number could play. There is no rule that ECF membership is required for the Counties Championship. I suggest you keep your can of worms firmly closed; many players have qualification for a number of counties.

Can you imagine a Lancs open team that could include Gman players-that would be seem to be a fantastic team-190s on the bottom board probably, lets hope both sides can sort out their differences to make it happen.

Lancs have 6 county teams in the ECF stages, we only have 2 playing in the MCCU (Open and U160), and some of our players aren't eligible to play for Lancs - impact, very small - they also pick players from Cheshire, Merseyside and Cumbria - they have lots of players to choose from

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Any postings on here represent my personal views and should not be taken as representative of the Manchester Chess Federation

The civil war is about G Man and Lancs existing separately, not together under one banner, we have already turned down that "offer"

Why don't Surrey and Middlesex merge, they would be unbeatable then?

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Any postings on here represent my personal views and should not be taken as representative of the Manchester Chess Federation

There have only been two defaults in the national stages of the County Championship this year. Both were by Yorkshire. So what's going wrong?

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February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

Mick, everyone acknowledges that Surrey and Middlesex are counties in their own right, since they've existed since antiquity. Because Lancashire is a county, and Greater Manchester is a post-1974 creation, those without the knowledge of the 40-years previous think that Greater Manchester is pinching territory from Lancashire. One local player opined that GM is a rebel group of people from Lancashire, and that's what the dispute is about.

People consider Lancashire to be a county, and not Greater Manchester, due to the date of its creation. It's not obvious to me how you change this perception.

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February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

Whilst absolutely correct, it does remain the case that the NCCU, Lancs and the BCF allowed the creation of Merseyside and Cleveland ( Cumbria as well if that was a restructuring) whilst objecting to the creation of GMan.

Birmingham, Bristol, parts of Yorkshire could have had similar motivations to form themselves into counties. I don't think there was any great interest in doing so. So there was bad blood between GMan and Lancs before any breakaway.

40 years ? Get real.

The source of the dispute came about 250 years ago in 1761, when the Duke of Bridgewater opened his canal bypassing Liverpool docks and making the small village of Manchester the effective capital of Lancashire. Manchester was however in the wrong place in the bottom right hand corner but became a chess centre attracting players from Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire to the Manchester Chess Club where county captains competed to enrol players. So it was all the Duke of Bridgewater's fault. If Bridgewater had terminated his canal in Preston or Bolton the Chess world would be different now.

Cumbria is a restructuring; the historic county is Cumberland.

There was a meeting held with the idea of forming a West Midlands Chess Association. No one wanted to create it though. Warwickshire has claimed Worcestershire's bit of the West Midlands, because Worcestershire never bothered to claim to keep hold of it, but Staffordshire defended their southern borders a bit more vigorously, and retain areas like Wolverhampton, Walsall and West Bromwich.

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February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships

from http://www.cumbriachess.org.uk/Info.htm



The departure of Greater Manchester was disagreed , as we know to this day. What Lancs hoped to gain by preventing this remains unclear. If the players and clubs in 1975 were disaffected with Lancs, they weren't going to turn out for Lancs teams.

Elsewhere, as you suggest in Birmingham, existing county demarcations and loyalties continued unaffected.
In the London area, a Middlesex team could on paper be even stronger if it borrowed players from Surrey, Kent, Essex or Herts. Part of the remit of the SCCU is to run winter Saturday afternoon regional county events, leagues work less well when all the strongest players are in the same team. If the idea of a Greater London county was ever considered, it wasn't promoted.

You can read the history section of the NCCU website for similar info about Merseyside, Cleveland, Cheshire/NWales

http://nccu.org.uk/nccu/history/index.htm

I'll join with Adam on another thread with his Nick Clegg moment

I agree with Roger

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Any postings on here represent my personal views and should not be taken as representative of the Manchester Chess Federation

The final scores are published online:

Open: Surrey 9 Kent 7
Minor: Bedfordshire 9 Hertfordshire 7
U180: Devon 7.5 Nottinghamshire 8.5
U160: Lancashire 5.5 Kent 10.5
U140: Kent 7.5 Hampshire 8.5
U120: Warwickshire 6.5 Lancashire 5.5
U100: Essex 8.5 Warwickshire 3.5

Surrey end their 54-year wait to win the County Championship.

Devon narrowly lost the U180 last year to Warwickshire, and Hampshire defended the U140 title they won last year.

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February 16-17: 2013 BUCA Team Championship
April 20: 2013 British Blitz Championship
July 27-August 10: 100th British Chess Championships