English Chess Forum

I despair. Perhaps the players themselves can get it across to you... The BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour episode - the SPTW interview begins at 50:11: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002zgml There's a video edit of it too: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbdqqySsxFe/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4...

Yes, that must be it - everyone's out of step except you Well, all right, Tim. Everyone except me, James Maton, his daughter and her teammates, Lorin D'Costa and quite few other people. I'll remind you of what James Maton posted above, because you can't have read it if you think I'm alone on this: ...

The SPTW team went to the press because it wants to exclude males as it thinks that including males would damage team cohesion, morale etc. Two things about this. First, this is bulletpointed as being “the 4NCL’s view”, but is it, or is it just Mike’s view? Second, this appears to be the 4NCL (or j...

C Robson wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 02, 2026 6:49 pm

Jon Hunt wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 02, 2026 6:40 pm

C Robson wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 02, 2026 6:35 pm

With all respect have you read her post!?

If you have a point to make, then please make it.

Lols:)) What is that meant to mean??? So friendly of you!! Please just re-read what you have said here and you should be able to work it out

No, I can’t. So do please enlighten me.

If you want to see where this row may have come from, try a Google search for "James Maton chess". In particular his job title reminds me of one Harry Lamb used to have in the Manchester Federation. Roger, thanks for googling me but really my lack of chess talent is the last thing I want to be know...

There's obviously been a lot of comment about this on here and elsewhere, but i'm struggling to observe anybody seriously engaging with Mike's contention above that the replacement of a "mixed sex" rule with a "female" rule would be potentially illegal under the Equality Act. And unless anybody doe...

Julie does mention whilst the 4NCL could change the rule to "one female only" it still could be legally challenged in her opinion; Lawrence Cooper has stated above that the option to drop the requirement to include a male player while retaining that to include a female player was the second most po...

Division 1 of the 4NCL also has two more teams captained by a well-known, long-term, supporter of women's chess, but maybe you don't know that, or don't want to acknowledge it because it doesn't help your argument. My argument is that the reason, or at least one of the reasons, that these female pl...

There's obviously been a lot of comment about this on here and elsewhere, but i'm struggling to observe anybody seriously engaging with Mike's contention above that the replacement of a "mixed sex" rule with a "female" rule would be potentially illegal under the Equality Act. And unless anybody doe...

The answer on male/female captains across the 4NCL in 2025-6 is then, it seems, 50 male captains to 2 female captains, with both the female captains being of teams in Division 4. Together with Claire Summerscale, that would make a total of three women who are known to have been consulted on the iss...

A list of captains for the 25-26 season is available here: https://4ncl.co.uk/data/2526/contact_details.htm It is mostly male. It's good to see some new women captaining next season: https://www.4ncl.co.uk/data/2627/contact_details.htm Let's try to keep this a bit more good-natured. The 4NCL has be...

My ‘male colleagues’ - no doubt including our Board Chair Claire Summerscale (captain of majority-female team Pride & Prejudice, who won the league in 2010/2011), whom we specifically consulted on Lorin’s proposal, and who was clear that she supported the current rule rather than Lorin’s proposal. ...

Mike Truran’s defence of his position was given plenty of airtime by the BBC, but it didn’t sound any better there than it reads here. For instance, how many of the captains he and his male colleagues running the 4NCL consulted were women?

Exactly. Your initiative, the Lionesses, and this pragmatic rule change deserve everyone’s support, Lorin.

It should not be the all-female team that has to lobby for change. Those running the league should have anticipated this eventuality and the obvious bad publicity that would ensue. The league organisers are quite capable of doing the right thing here. There is still the chance to change course, to ...