English Chess Forum

Here's another matter that I think should be discussed. It's no secret that there's a UK club web site in which some of the members appear to delight in attacking people. They have been accused of being 'liars', 'primitives', 'welching on their commitments', 'hired guns' etc, in fact the sheer nastiness is gobsmacking. Frankly I think it does nothing but damage to the game.

My question is this: Should the ECF have some means of imposing sanctions on such clubs and/or individuals until they mend their ways?

Nigel_Davies wrote:Here's another matter that I think should be discussed. It's no secret that there's a UK club web site in which some of the members appear to delight in attacking people. They have been accused of being 'liars', 'primitives', 'welching on their commitments', 'hired guns' etc, in fact the sheer nastiness is gobsmacking. Frankly I think it does nothing but damage to the game.

My question is this: Should the ECF have some means of imposing sanctions on such clubs and/or individuals until they mend their ways?

That site would be?

Please keep to some sort of point people, unlike "other" sites I won't allow this to become personal in any shape or form!

Bob Clark wrote:No prizes for guessing, but perhaps Nigel should consider the conduct of the members of his club before submitting posts like this.

We do seem to have other sites quoting discussions on here without acknowledgment which is a bit of a shame

I'm hoping that the details of "The Atticus - Widnes" incident will be made public before too long. I am aware of the sordid details and, assuming what I have been told is correct, there indeed, was much nastiness and abuse. However, I have only heard the Atticus side of matters hitherto.


Perhaps someone from Widnes (Andy Kelly?) would be keen to clear the air?

There is similar relationship between two clubs nearer to home which has been caused by the financial importing of players from various remote locations.
Perhaps the purchasing of local League titles could become another thread?

Bob Clark wrote:No prizes for guessing, but perhaps Nigel should consider the conduct of the members of his club before submitting posts like this.

A couple of quotes from this site:

"It goes without saying that the antiquated dullards of the MCA Exec heavily voted down my proposal."

"I believe I demonstrated £$%^&*( to be unscrupulous and a liar.... "

Trawling around the forum a lot more can be found. So excuse me, did you say something about conduct? It is very clear that several members of this club are abusive about just about everyone they perceive as getting in their way and they are now hated throughout Merseyside chess. Most people have been keeping quiet about this but I have a bad habit of standing up to bullies.

What sort of sanctions? Clubs and leagues are both mostly independent entities; there isn't a lot the ECF can meaningfully do to punish them.

Nigel_Davies wrote:Trawling around the forum a lot more can be found. So excuse me, did you say something about conduct? It is very clear that several members of this club are abusive about just about everyone they perceive as getting in their way and they are now hated throughout Merseyside chess. Most people have been keeping quiet about this but I have a bad habit of standing up to bullies.

As I have already pointed out a lot of this "handbags" type stuff I will let go - but there is a limit, so please everyone keep to the point

FM Jack Rudd wrote:What sort of sanctions? Clubs and leagues are both mostly independent entities; there isn't a lot the ECF can meaningfully do to punish them.

If you're the governing body there's always stuff you can do. For example they could ban them from playing competitive chess, making any events which accepted these guys as competitors ineligable for grades.

Carl Hibbard wrote:As I have already pointed out a lot of this "handbags" type stuff I will let go - but there is a limit, so please everyone keep to the point

But Carl, this can do wonders for your hits, especially when I make mincemeat out of these guys.

Ah, I've just been to the site in question, and see that this topic was started about an hour before Nigel started this thread.

FM Jack Rudd wrote:Ah, I've just been to the site in question, and see that this topic was started about an hour before Nigel started this thread.

This one's a fairly mild bit of abuse compared with some of the other stuff one can find up there. In this article you can find little touches such as this: "And by the time the game resumed he was nearly 40 minutes behind on the clock. D’Costa eventually lost the game", which as with the entire article is an attempt to besmirch me by implying that I somehow gained an advantage during this thing. D'Costa was more than 40 minutes behind when I went to get the arbiter - my clock was running. He also had a terrible position. But this statement, plus the photo of the clock, attempts to imply that this was not the case.

This is an example of their 'reporting' which is easily falsified, there are others which are not. For example there's the entire waffling non-report of the famous Widnes incident which ends with one of their number calling the Widnes captain "unscrupulous and a liar". Of course from the piece about my game last weekend one can get an idea about their standards of fairness and accuracy.

Bob Clark wrote: I think you should have posted a link to the whole of John Carleton article rather than just the last sentence.
Then perhaps you should publish why you think he is wrong.

This so called 'article' does not go into the actual incident at all, or any other facts for that matter.

My understanding of this whole thing (I wasn't there but have managed to piece it together from various reports and my knowledge of those involved) is that with calm and reasoned behaviour on the part of 'the accusers' it should never have happened in the first place and could simply have been defused at any number of points. Instead it has become this tirade of abuse.

How about we also discuss how if people's phones go off they should get defaulted

The latest piece from them. Have I annoyed them or something?

http://www.atticuschess.org.uk/forum/ph ... .php?t=470