English Chess Forum

Richard Bates wrote:George, Ron and Dean Headley.

C.R.I.C.K.E.T. (I just searched both the ECF and FIDE lists for those names...)

How about

Harry Lamb (ENG but wants to be FRA). Me
Derek Lamb (highest BCF rating 201). My brother
Michael Lamb (FRA and does not care). My son
Ian Lamb (FRA and wants to be ENG). My son

I once seriously thought about putting a Lamb team in the national clubs championship as there are other members of my clan (including my mother) who could have occupied board 6

Harry Lamb

Harry Lamb v Liam Rabbitte
Derek Lamb v Dominic Rabbitte
Michael Lamb v Michael Rabbitte
Ian Lamb v Alex Rabbitte
Mrs. Lamb v Paul Rabbitte

Would that match get the arbiters in a bit of a stew ???

I once captained a team that contained Keven Lamb and Vivienne Lamb, and in fact Keven eventually took over the captaincy from me, so there are certainly further Lamb's in the chess world. On occasion Keven Lamb's opponent was surnamed Wolf.

Well done to those who found the cricketing examples of the Headley's and the Mohammmed's which were better than the one's I gave. All three Headley's played Test cricket, while there were also two further Mohammed brothers who played first class cricket Wazir and Raees. Wazir played test cricket, while Raees was 12th man for a test. Also the grandfather-father-son combination of Hanif, Shoaib and Shehzar is another that has produced two Test match cricketers and one first class cricketer.

Brothers Martin and Jeff Crowe both captained New Zealand at cricket, and their father Dave also had a short career at first-class level.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:I shouldn't have mentioned other sports, should I? (You missed out the Broads in cricket). Anyone know of families in other mind games? Shogi, Go, Chinese chess, er, does poker count? Backgammon? Draughts?

Spassky's sister Irena won the USSR draughts championship in the early 60s.

Alan Burke wrote:Harry Lamb v Liam Rabbitte
Derek Lamb v Dominic Rabbitte
Michael Lamb v Michael Rabbitte
Ian Lamb v Alex Rabbitte
Mrs. Lamb v Paul Rabbitte

Would that match get the arbiters in a bit of a stew ???

If they are one short maybe the Lambs could ask Jonathan Mutton to be a guest player, or would that be interpreted as Mutton dressed as Lamb?

LozCooper wrote:If they are one short maybe the Lambs could ask Jonathan Mutton to be a guest player, or would that be interpreted as Mutton dressed as Lamb?

Is that your joke or your uncle Tommy's.

A match in Scunthorpe once featured 6 members of the same family. I remember Paul, Norman and Alf Hutchinson, but I'm not sure of the other names. They were strong players, Paul last grade is given as 216 and Norman is 183.

In 4-man teams this season, I've fielded teams with two pairs of brothers. I could theoretically field a 8-man team next season with four pairs of brothers!

Perts, Eckerleys-Waites and Eggleston's are all twins I believe. That is quite impressive considering most of them are in top 100 players in England.

LozCooper wrote: If they are one short maybe the Lambs could ask Jonathan Mutton to be a guest player, or would that be interpreted as Mutton dressed as Lamb?

When my wife was pregnant we were discussing names for the baby. My wife decided if it was a girl she would like to call her Rose. She was upset when I vetoed it. Until I pointed out that if you say Rose Lamb it sounds like Roast Lamb.

My wife had a similar problem. She was christened Barbara Anne Parry. Nothing wrong with that you may say. But when we married she became Mrs Ba Lamb

I think we can safely say that the team of Lamb's would beat the team of George's (the family that once filled all five boards of a Southampton Chess League match) as I see from the ECF grading database that the gradings of Harry and Ian Lamb add up to 316, while the gradings of the five George family members add up to 314 (for inactive players I have taken the last published grade).

With regard to Matthew Turner's post I agree that there are strong players surnamed Hutchinson, but I did also find two players surnamed Hutchinson from Scunthorpe whose last published grade was a single figure number.

However it should also be stated at the same time that there are a lot of people with low grades who do sterling work for the game of chess, and it is good that the game is enjoyed by players of varying ability.

John Clarke wrote:Spassky's sister Irena won the USSR draughts championship in the early 60s.

I think Spassky's sister is called Iraida, though it is given as Irena throught the interweb. This is a picture of her (she's the one on the right)
http://visualrian.ru/ru/site/gallery/#102665?print=true
Russian surnames are a little confusing because brothers and sisters often have different endings to their names. Iraida's maiden name was Spasskaya.

Jon D'Souza-Eva wrote: Russian surnames are a little confusing because brothers and sisters often have different endings to their names. Iraida's maiden name was Spasskaya.

That's because you can always tell the gender of a Russian noun by how it ends (even proper nouns, although I'd have to go and look up the details).

Random additions to the list of names already supplied:

Jackie Milburn: uncle to the Charlton brothers
Graeme Pollock; Peter's brother and Shaun's uncle.
Frank Lampard, whose late wife's sister is married to Harry Redknapp. Their children (Frank Lampard and Jamie Rednkapp).

Regarding George, Ron and Dean Headley, two played for West Indies and one for England. In the Germany v Ghana match in the 2010 World Cup, brothers George Boateng and Kevin-Prince Boateng were on opposite teams. Are there any similar examples from chess?