Inordinate length of time at a club

[Kevin Thurlow]

"An impressive record, but still a few years behind my club's Chairman. Namely, John Cannon who you may recall exchanging correspondence with on the SCCU Forum a couple of year's ago when John recorded having played his 500th county match."

I've played him a few times as well.

I'm beginning to feel like a new recruit.

[Gordon Cadden]

This is the record that you must aim to beat.
Hugh Price joined the Cardiff Chess Club in 1938, at the age of 10 years. Too young to serve in the Second World War, he has an unbroken run of 78 years at the club.

Forgot to mention that Hugh Price is the Current Membership Secretary.

[Stewart Reuben]

A TV company has contacted the ECF. They intend to do a programme on Cenenarians and thought chess would be a fertile area. Sombody aged about 98 would also be of interest to them.
Nothing in this thread gets anything near that number.
100 year olds, particularly women are much more common in Briage than Chess.
Anybody got any ideas?

[Michael Farthing]

The grading and membership databases I believe hold dob for disambiguation purposes. Would a gentle SQL query to identify possible candidates who might be approached informally be against the data protection rules? A null return would at least mean we could probably stop scratching our heads.

[Stewart Reuben]

I was told this information is not easily available on the ECF database. One probem is that a person who stops playing quite quickly falls off the ECF database. FIDE have the reverse problem. If somebody dies, they may not ever be removed from the list

[Roger de Coverly]

A null return would at least mean we could probably stop scratching our heads.

A search of the FIDE list by year of birth comes up with EL Stuart for 1918. He was someone I had met at Congresses andI believe I saw his obituary some years ago.

No-one else out to 1921.

[Roger de Coverly]

I was told this information is not easily available on the ECF database.

It's available with the Master Lists as otherwise they wouldn't be able to do reports by age distribution or report on Senior players . It wouldn't be reliable for inactive players as it doesn't have the reason for their inactivity. Not all players, particularly those who were playing before the collection of such data have dates of birth recorded.

[Nick Burrows]

I walked into Bolton Chess Club for the first time in 1953 at the age of 11. In 1963 I became President. I have been a member and President ever since. Which makes me a member for 63 years and President for 53 years.

I have also been involved in the Bolton Easter congress and its predecessors as a player, organiser, or arbiter every year from 1954 which is a total of 62 years (may be 63 years depending on how you count). My most pleasant memory is Easter 1974 when I was chief controller. (We did not have arbiters in those days!) On Easter Saturday night my wife Barbara went unexpectedly into labour and gave birth to our first son Michael. I had not done the draw when I left the event on Saturday night. I turned up on Easter Sunday morning over an hour late expecting a shambles. Well I had to go to hospital and see my new son! But there was no shambles. Everyone was sat quietly playing chess. The players who had guessed the situation when I had not turned up did the draw themselves and got on with it

Amazing dedication and service to chess Harry!

If not for playing with Ian at primary school, and you taking me to my first ever tournament in Manchester, I probably would not have begun playing as an adult - so thank you again for that!

[Alex Holowczak]

I was told this information is not easily available on the ECF database. One probem is that a person who stops playing quite quickly falls off the ECF database. FIDE have the reverse problem. If somebody dies, they may not ever be removed from the list

We show the age of junior players to help organisers of junior tournaments.

If the Manager of Senior Chess wanted similar information to be available for senior players, then he could do worse than drop me an e-mail, so we can consider it.

[Ian Thompson]

I was told this information is not easily available on the ECF database.

There are 34 players in the current ECF Master List with dates of birth from more than 100 years ago, but none of them have any recorded games in the last 3 years. The oldest player with games recorded last season was born in 1923. Obviously, this data isn't reliable because there are thousands of players with no date of birth recorded, and it's quite likely that most of the centenarians have died by now.

[Stewart Reuben]

As Manager of Senior Chess all I need to know about players is their year of birth. That tells me whether they are eligible to play in 50+ or 65+ events It can also be useful to know 49+ as they become eligible from 1 January.
The TV station wanted to know about centenarians. Where they have been inactive in English chess for some years, the ECF list is not very useful.

I presume gender is available on the ECF list. That will be useful for Sarah.

There is no information on disability. The BCA and DCA have information in their sectors. But no interest seems to be no shown in the other disabled players within the ECF. That is a pity as there is considerable activity internationally.

[David Shepherd]

If they want to go as far as Canada then:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/z ... -1.3731477

[E Michael White]

The grading and membership databases I believe hold dob for disambiguation purposes. Would a gentle SQL query to identify possible candidates who might be approached informally be against the data protection rules?

Yes very likely.

[Neil Graham]

As Manager of Senior Chess all I need to know about players is their year of birth. That tells me whether they are eligible to play in 50+ or 65+ events It can also be useful to know 49+ as they become eligible from 1 January.
The TV station wanted to know about centenarians. Where they have been inactive in English chess for some years, the ECF list is not very useful.

I presume gender is available on the ECF list. That will be useful for Sarah.

There is no information on disability. The BCA and DCA have information in their sectors. But no interest seems to be no shown in the other disabled players within the ECF. That is a pity as there is considerable activity internationally.

The oldest active chess player in the country was said to be Alf Schroeder who passed away in 2014.

His obituary is given here http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=6173

[John Clarke]

The oldest active chess player in the country was said to be Alf Schroeder who passed away in 2014.

Rather long ago now, and veering a bit off the original topic as well, but: this item got quite a lot of coverage at the time (2004).