Lost chess clubs

[Leon Watson]

Hi, I wonder if y'all can help me.

I'm trying to build up a picture of whether club chess is growing or declining in England. I suspect declining, obviously, but have no figures to back that up.

I doubt there are any figures on this specific question, but I wonder if people here can give me an idea of how many chess clubs have closed in recent years, in England generally or in any specific area, e.g. London.

I'm constantly hearing people say, "there used to be a chess club in XXXX, but it closed", so it seems to me that before I started getting involved in the game (only 5 years ago, so I still finding out new stuff that is obvious to many people here) there were many more clubs.

So if you could complete this sentence "there used to be a chess club in XXXX, but it closed around 2015" that would be very handy.

If we could come up with a rough figure for an area, say, 25% of clubs in Staffs over the last 5 years, that would be great.

[Michael Farthing]

One of my leagues (Blackpool & Fylde) has some evidence on this as each year we produce a handbook of fixtures which contains a list of past winners dating back to 1968-9. It shows no losses since 2008 but a number before then, often work or school teams.

Exact dates of loss of clubs cannot be determined accurately but this gives last dates of recorded victory in any of the divisions:

2008 Blackpool
1996 Prebonds (Don't know anything about this)
1996 Norcross
1995 Guardian (Insurance Company)
1994 King Edward (school I assume)
1991 Lancaster: Included for completeness. The club still exists but plays in my other league (Lancaster & Morecambe)
1983 Kirkham
1974 British Aerospace
1970 Pelham Mount
1969 Kirkham GS (I'm assuming this is different from Kirkham above).

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm trying to build up a picture of whether club chess is growing or declining in England. I suspect declining, obviously, but have no figures to back that up.

Why not look at past BCF and ECF Yearbooks which invariably contain a list of clubs and sometimes the local league tables, or get the grading team to give you counts of games played in leagues and club championships? The aggregate number of players with at least one game played in the grading system has remained relatively constant for the past decade if not longer. That may mask an increasing population of transient under 12s.

[J T Melsom]

Also not sure about this measure of activity - locally there are very few clubs that have closed, but many have reduced the number of teams they field, some at a faster rate of decline than others. The biggest fear of mine is the number of clubs which are effectively only meeting for match chess and have no spare players to entertain the newcomer. I believe some clubs are only meeting to play the matches and may have scrapped the broader club evening altogether.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Cumbria has a few that have gone under in the last 20 years - Whitehaven, Workington, Grange, Arnside and (my former club) Millom.

On a more positive note, Keswick have returned and the Ulverston club is almost booming.

[Stewart Reuben]

It is not an easy matter. e.g.
In London, Islington Chess Club disappeared completely, although in the 1970s - 80s it was arguably the most successful club in Britain,
But Hackney Club came into existence and is a thriving concern. So was there any decrease in the number of players?