How different it was in the 30s

[Kevin Thurlow]

I was having a tidy up yesterday and found some 1937 editions of 'Chess'. In the 14th September edition, there was a report on the recently finished Olympiad...

"At least two correspondents in Scottish newspapers took those people to task who alluded to the B.C.F.'s team as "England," ... Ireland and Scotland in turn have broken away: maybe Wales will follow some day, then the North of England; and the B.C.F. will at last stand in verity for the little London-cum-Oxford-cum-Cambridge clique which is all it has represented for many a day."

And on the next page, there is a report of a Dutch proposal to have a World Championship Candidates tournament, the winner to play the World Champion the following year. BH Wood commented,

"So long as the arrangement of world-championship matches remains out of the control of some recognised responsible body, so long will there be chaos in connection with them."

BHW then congratulates Dr Euwe for saying if he won the title match against Alekhine (about to start), he would put the control of the world title in the hands of FIDE. Alekhine and others agreed, FIDE rejected the proposal...

"The reasons for this crassly stupid decision are hard to find. " (There is more...) "Get better men! Mr. Rueb and his delegates are not gods. If a labourer makes a mess of his job, he is sacked. If an engineer makes a bad blunder, he loses his job. The present F.I.D.E. is obviously incompetent. We should sack the lot!"

Incidentally, Alekhine was providing annotations to the games during the match, starting with Game 1 (not surprisingly), which he lost (annotating a lost game for a magazine is a surprise...), finishing his comments with "An excellent game on the part of the World Champion."

[Matt Mackenzie]

Yup, the early editions of CHESS make fascinating reading on many levels.......

Much has changed since then - but a surprising amount hasn't!!

[Paul McKeown]

Yes, the early editions of CHESS, particularly the large format ones, were ab fab, unputdownable good reads that beat the staid old BCM of the time into a cocked hat. A fired up BH Wood was a better read than Hugh Alexander &c boring for Britain. Love reading through CJS Purdy's mags, too, whenever I come across them. He also wrote with feeling. [P.S. I'm not having a go, John, don't read this in that way! Indeed I have been a subscriber to BCM much more recently than Chess. In later years BCM was better.]

[John Saunders]

Reading what BHW wrote about FIDE, I was just slightly worried that I might be thought guilty of plagiarism, having written remarkably similar sentiments in BCM over the last ten years or so. Perhaps a change of motto is indicated. Corruptus in extremis is very tempting but that really would be plagiarism since it is the motto of Mayor Quimby's Springfield administration in The Simpsons. Instead, with BHW's comment in mind, I offer a simple, one-word change: Gens incompetens sumus.

Paul - as it happens, I agree with you. BHW was the daddy!