Perhaps I am being naeve,or am missing something,but it seems to me that now the ''BCF' has become the ''ECF'' it should only be a matter of time before we do away with the title ''British Champion'',and let the ECF concern itself with running the ''English Championship''.Geoff Chandler wrote:
Heard rumblings (again) that other countries GM's don't get treated the
same as English GM's when it comes to the Britsh.
But that's all politics as far as I'm concerned - I stay away
from that stuff. It get all too serious - Chess is fun.
Let's take a look:
1) We are discouraging all none-English GMs from playing,by not offering them fees.
2) The BCF is now the ECF.
3) We have the rather silly situation that Stuart Conquest and myself find ourselves in -viz: Stuart is ''British Champion'',and we are both ''English Champion''.
This in effect says that Stuart is sole champion of the bits that aren't England(such as Scotland,Wales and Northern ireland),while he is both sole champion
and co-champion,with me,of the English bits!
By making the ''British championship'' the ''English Championship'' we eliminate any whingeing about unfair treatment of the none-English GMs,we have better consistency,with each Federation running its own championship,and we do away with the messiness of 3).
As far as I can see there is no dowsnide to this.The congress in every other way runs the same as it always has.
I am not trying to undermine the history of the British Championship in any way,it just looks to me as if this is the direction in which we are heading.