NCCU and the MCF

[Chris Goodall]

I'm not going to comment on the inner workings of another County organisation other than to say that I hope to see Lancashire back competing in NCCU competitions as soon as possible.

In the mean time Yorkshire, Merseyside, Northumberland, Cleveland, Cumbria and MCF will carry on with a resurgent Northern Chess scene. We are stronger together and the door is open for Lancashire to join back in whenever they feel they can do so.

For Cleveland read Durham, Cheshire&NW.

I have some sympathy for Lancashire here. When you've just beaten your enemy 7-1, I think you can afford to tell them "good game" rather than "gerrit up ye ya bastards" which has been the prevailing mood on here.

[Andrew Wainwright]

I'm not going to comment on the inner workings of another County organisation other than to say that I hope to see Lancashire back competing in NCCU competitions as soon as possible.

In the mean time Yorkshire, Merseyside, Northumberland, Cleveland, Cumbria and MCF will carry on with a resurgent Northern Chess scene. We are stronger together and the door is open for Lancashire to join back in whenever they feel they can do so.

For Cleveland read Durham, Cheshire&NW.

I have some sympathy for Lancashire here. When you've just beaten your enemy 7-1, I think you can afford to tell them "good game" rather than "gerrit up ye ya bastards" which has been the prevailing mood on here.

There are no words.......

[Stephen Westmoreland]

Chris... As the person who put the proposal in to the NCCU, it was in no way done against Lancashire. It was to get the North operating as one. Nobody spoke against Lancashire and I openly said how much I enjoying playing and meeting players and organisers across the border.

The inner workings of Lancashire are none of my business but the door is open. Merseyside for example, may still put quite a few teams in. I really hope to still see the Lancashire teams in this season.

[Stephen Westmoreland]

Do the Lancashire players who actually want to play chess now transfer to GMan? Or, here's a thought. Why not start a new Lancashire Association and ask to affiliate to ECF, as the new association is representing the players' interests? (This is supposed to be an aim of chess.) ECF would probably decline the application, which would start a whole new argument.

For that matter, some of them play for Calderdale in the Yorkshire league, so could presumably turn out for Yorkshire Heywood/Blue club in the GM league likely cover more.

In practice I suspect most people actually have a county they have a 'genuine' attachment to.

The second does feel like far too extreme a step. Must be easier, if not trivial, to get different leadership in place.

Last Monday Huddersfield were away to Hebden Bridge in the Calderdale League. The mix of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Manchester players there met each other with smiles and chatted happily away like good friends. Some of us had some of the wonderful Indonesian food at the Trades Club. It is how it should be (especially the food) and how it should be going forwards.

[Chris Goodall]

Chris... As the person who put the proposal in to the NCCU, it was in no way done against Lancashire.

I know we've all been told many times to ignore the past 40 years and focus on the present, but it was definitely Lancashire that objected to Manchester's membership...

At the end of the day we went from one status quo (Manchester in the MCCU) to a different one (Manchester in the NCCU). If you frame the previous status quo as a "dispute" and the current status quo as a "resolution" to that dispute, you're already rejecting Lancashire's position.

Lancastrians: you got outvoted. That's all that happened. It wasn't an outbreak of sanity or common sense or cordiality or a resolution to a dispute. It was simple majoritarian democracy. Come back soon.

[Stephen Westmoreland]

Chris. We get to play a board game with a new set of players. Big win and look forwards to the next meet with Lancs outside of the Calderdale League. Great set of players.

[Chris Goodall]

And the great sets of players in the MCCU have lost an opponent. Swings and roundabouts.

[Mick Norris]

Not really, there were no opponents for G Man in the only section we entered in the MCCU

[MartinCarpenter]

It wasn't an outbreak of sanity or common sense

I'm going to have to pedant this, very slightly.

I wouldn't call any of the Lancastrians involved remotely daft. Stubborn/(over?) principled perhaps, faults shared by many chess players at times.

I've actually got quite a bit of sympathy with the position that Greater Manchester shouldn't have qualified as a county for the county championships. A lot of these sorts of competitions have stuck with historic counties. Look at the reaction to city based teams in the Hundred....

Obvious why there was pressure for representation too though. The 4NCL obviously didn't exist at the time, maybe history would have been different if it did.


But once the decision had been made that the urban areas were going to be accepted as counties, then having GM playing in the Midlands rather than the North simply was an objectively daft state of affairs. There really wasn't any other way to describe it.

Certainly everyone I've told about it outside chess thought it so It made us look collectively daft.

[Roger de Coverly]

A lot of these sorts of competitions have stuck with historic counties.

Very much the case for the SCCU (Middlesex was not replaced by Greater London), WECU (No Avon county), MCCU (no Greater Birmingham). That's despite the presence of long established leagues in those areas. In the NCCU on the other hand, Durham and Yorkshire were sliced to create Cleveland, and Lancashire itself was sliced to create Merseyside.

So opposition to the creation of Greater Manchester by slicing Lancashire and Cheshire seemed illogical and thus rather more due to personal animosity.

[MartinCarpenter]

A lot of these sorts of competitions have stuck with historic counties.

Very much the case for the SCCU (Middlesex was not replaced by Greater London), WECU (No Avon county), MCCU (no Greater Birmingham). That's despite the presence of long established leagues in those areas. In the NCCU on the other hand, Durham and Yorkshire were sliced to create Cleveland, and Lancashire itself was sliced to create Merseyside.

So opposition to the creation of Greater Manchester by slicing Lancashire and Cheshire seemed illogical and thus rather more due to personal animosity.

I dunno, Cleveland only cost Yorkshire about 5% of its population?

Lancashire though, got its population base split into three near equally sized segments. Fairly easy to understand their being somewhat put out about it on those grounds Slightly less people overall than Yorkshire to start with, although they've always had a better historic record.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I admit there wasn't much rhyme or reason as to which "new" counties in the 1970s created their own chess teams and which didn't.

[Gareth T Ellis]

by Mick Norris » Wed Nov 02, 2022 7:55 am

I am told that Bill O'Rourke has resigned as President of Lancashire

Wrong

by David Sedgwick » Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:38 am

I had been told that the Lancashire boycott was likely.

Rubbish


From an email received a few weeks ago from Bill O'Rourke

Dear All
After 30 years as an officer, county captain and President of the Lancashire Chess Association, I have decided that now is the right time to retire from chess organisation.

At the Heywood agm late August, he'd stood down from most duties due to pressure of work.

There was also a request for anyone interested in captaining any of the Lancashire county teams to get in touch, so If there are no Lancashire teams entered that's because no one is interested in doing it.

Unless the situation has changed in the last few days, Merseyside also won't be entering.

Cheshire & North Wales haven't bothered for the last few decades.

[Chris Goodall]

A lot of these sorts of competitions have stuck with historic counties.

Very much the case for the SCCU (Middlesex was not replaced by Greater London), WECU (No Avon county), MCCU (no Greater Birmingham). That's despite the presence of long established leagues in those areas. In the NCCU on the other hand, Durham and Yorkshire were sliced to create Cleveland, and Lancashire itself was sliced to create Merseyside.

So opposition to the creation of Greater Manchester by slicing Lancashire and Cheshire seemed illogical and thus rather more due to personal animosity.

On the other hand, there was never any talk of slicing Northumberland and Durham to create Tyne & Wear, and when Humberside tried to secede from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (in the late 80s IIRC), Yorkshire was furious and insisted on the right of veto. When David Sedgwick talked about a veto clause having gotten itself into the NCCU constitution, I assumed that it dated from the Humberside dispute.

Matt M is right - there is no rhyme or reason. Manchester were successful in creating "facts on the ground" that outweighed theoretical quibbles. (Applying simultaneously to the MCCU and NCCU was a clever move.)

[Stephen Westmoreland]

All the best to Bill and hope to see him at future events. Merseyside were going to answer about teams today.

Noted that this post has been going since 2010, which is amazing. Is it time to archive now the question is resolved?