Compulsory Membership?

[David Robertson]

Now now David play nice i dont need advice from somebody that ripped his own chess club apart.I am at least trying to be progresive and get this mess sorted out.

What's all this about, William? I've ripped nothing apart. And I'm not sure what advice I'm supposed to have given you that warrants this false accusation and personal attack.

[Mick Norris]

If you don't want ancient county boundaries dictating the teams you are allowed to play for, then you play 4NCL. If you do, then the normal resolution of restructuring is to allow the relevant players a choice. It's not OMOV, but it is players deciding which county to play as.

We agree entirely - if players are eligible for more than one county, then they should choose who to play for

I don't know if it's solely about county team eligibility, is there an issue about which county, local clubs are made to affiliate to? There does seem to be an attitude in the Lancs camp that it should have "ownership" of local players, and the creation of what they regard as the pirate body of Greater Manchester somehow "stole" them.

The MCF is a Federation of clubs, with membership determined simply by playing in the Manchester League, so we tend to treat eligibility for Greater Manchester as being related to the county boundaries - we don't own any players, local or otherwise

Lancs, on the hand, allow clubs to affiliate to them, and the ECF County Championship rules allow anyone in such a club to be eligible to play for them (even if that club were, say, St Petersburg, and the player was, say, Peter Svidler)

At the main MCF cup final on Thursday night, Bolton played Jeff Horner on 1 (Lancs) and Mike Surtees on 2 (G Man) - no problem

[Alex Holowczak]

Lancs, on the hand, allow clubs to affiliate to them, and the ECF County Championship rules allow anyone in such a club to be eligible to play for them (even if that club were, say, St Petersburg, and the player was, say, Peter Svidler)

This is going to be added to the list of CC rulechanges for October. (Since we didn't finish the April ones, I thought it couldn't hurt to add this to it.)

[Richard Bates]

Lancs, on the hand, allow clubs to affiliate to them, and the ECF County Championship rules allow anyone in such a club to be eligible to play for them (even if that club were, say, St Petersburg, and the player was, say, Peter Svidler)

This is going to be added to the list of CC rulechanges for October. (Since we didn't finish the April ones, I thought it couldn't hurt to add this to it.)

What, precisely, is going to be added to the list of CC rulechanges?

[Alex Holowczak]

Lancs, on the hand, allow clubs to affiliate to them, and the ECF County Championship rules allow anyone in such a club to be eligible to play for them (even if that club were, say, St Petersburg, and the player was, say, Peter Svidler)

This is going to be added to the list of CC rulechanges for October. (Since we didn't finish the April ones, I thought it couldn't hurt to add this to it.)

What, precisely, is going to be added to the list of CC rulechanges?

Good question, I wasn't clear.

I'm going to invite Council to completely reconsider new rule C3.1iii (on eligibility):
"Two months immediate previous and present membership of a club either in or affiliated to that County."

Potential amendments exclude affiliation of 4NCL teams to counties (otherwise Surrey could call up Nigel Short if 4NCL Guildford affiliates to Surrey), or indeed affiliation at all. This isn't one I feel strongly about, but others have mentioned it to me, so I thought it to be the sort of question worth asking Council.

[IM Jack Rudd]

I'm going to put forward a mild Declaration of Interest here: in my day in the Somerset league, there were two clubs that affiliated to the SCCA that weren't actually in Somerset: Gillingham & Shaftesbury (Dorset) and Trowbridge (Wiltshire). I sometimes called G&S players up to the county team.

(Note: currently, Wiltshire have no county team at all, and Dorset have only an U-160 team.)

[Sean Hewitt]

I'm going to put forward a mild Declaration of Interest here: in my day in the Somerset league, there were two clubs that affiliated to the SCCA that weren't actually in Somerset: Gillingham & Shaftesbury (Dorset) and Trowbridge (Wiltshire). I sometimes called G&S players up to the county team.

Fair play for declaring the interest.

The question of course is whether playing for a team that is not actually county A should entitle you to play chess for county A?

It's hard to think of a coherent argument where the conclusion is that it should.

[Richard Bates]

This is going to be added to the list of CC rulechanges for October. (Since we didn't finish the April ones, I thought it couldn't hurt to add this to it.)

What, precisely, is going to be added to the list of CC rulechanges?

Good question, I wasn't clear.

I'm going to invite Council to completely reconsider new rule C3.1iii (on eligibility):
"Two months immediate previous and present membership of a club either in or affiliated to that County."

Ahhh, membership... How is that defined?

[Ian Thompson]

Potential amendments exclude affiliation of 4NCL teams to counties (otherwise Surrey could call up Nigel Short if 4NCL Guildford affiliates to Surrey), or indeed affiliation at all.

That could be quite difficult to draft in such a way that it has the desired effect. There are teams called Guildford playing in the Surrey League, the Surrey Border League and the 4NCL. There are some players who play for Guildford in all three of these competitions and some who only play in one or two of them. On what basis could you say that the Guildford teams playing in the 4NCL are from a different club than those playing in the other two leagues (particularly as it appears that those people who do play for Guildford in the Surrey League or the Surrey Border League get selected for the 4NCL Guildford 3rd team in preference to stronger players who don't)?

[Richard Bates]

I'm going to put forward a mild Declaration of Interest here: in my day in the Somerset league, there were two clubs that affiliated to the SCCA that weren't actually in Somerset: Gillingham & Shaftesbury (Dorset) and Trowbridge (Wiltshire). I sometimes called G&S players up to the county team.

Fair play for declaring the interest.

The question of course is whether playing for a team that is not actually county A should entitle you to play chess for county A?

It's hard to think of a coherent argument where the conclusion is that it should.

It would open up a few cans of worms. Some clubs situated on county borders may fairly regularly change venues to move them in and out of county borders. And some counties i think may to some extent self-define their borders. What are the borders of Middlesex, for example? There is also the Richmond question mentioned earlier.

[Roger de Coverly]

(otherwise Surrey could call up Nigel Short if 4NCL Guildford affiliates to Surrey),

In the unlikely event that Nigel was persuaded to play county chess, why would you want to restrict him to Lancashire, or even Greater Manchester? I suppose he might, at a pinch, have Middlesex eligibility as well.

[IM Jack Rudd]

There are all sorts of edge cases you could construct with the club rule for county eligibility. For example, the town of Yeovil has grown over the years, and while it had been completely within Somerset, now some of it spills over the border into Dorset. Let's say that for whatever reason, Yeovil chess club loses its venue mid-season and now has to find another one, and the only place it can find is within the part of the town that's in Dorset. It's the same players, playing chess in the same league, but all of a sudden, their county eligibilities will have changed.

(I see that Richard has made much the same point while I was writing this.)

[Roger de Coverly]

The question of course is whether playing for a team that is not actually county A should entitle you to play chess for county A?

It's hard to think of a coherent argument where the conclusion is that it should.

Within reason I don't really see why you shouldn't play for whoever you wanted to or who would select you. Particularly as the geographical catchment areas aren't equivalent in size, bussing in a few external stars increases both the feasibility of having a team in the first place and improves its competitive strength.

[Roger de Coverly]

Let's say that for whatever reason, Yeovil chess club loses its venue mid-season and now has to find another one, and the only place it can find is within the part of the town that's in Dorset. It's the same players, playing chess in the same league, but all of a sudden, their county eligibilities will have changed.

Back in 1974, counties in the south agreed in general to leave boundaries unchanged. In other words to continue to use traditional counties. As a consequence Bucks retained Slough, rather than give them to Berks. They've now moved a couple of miles north and Bucks have got them back geographically as well.

[Alex Holowczak]

Potential amendments exclude affiliation of 4NCL teams to counties (otherwise Surrey could call up Nigel Short if 4NCL Guildford affiliates to Surrey), or indeed affiliation at all.

That could be quite difficult to draft in such a way that it has the desired effect.

Tell me about it.

There are some players who play for Guildford in all three of these competitions and some who only play in one or two of them. On what basis could you say that the Guildford teams playing in the 4NCL are from a different club than those playing in the other two leagues (particularly as it appears that those people who do play for Guildford in the Surrey League or the Surrey Border League get selected for the 4NCL Guildford 3rd team in preference to stronger players who don't)?

You can cover this by saying players who play for the 4NCL Guildford team in the 4NCL aren't eligible, but players who play for their other league teams are. There's a nicer way of drafting this that someone has come up with, but I'm not submitting it to the forum, because we'll still be talking about it in 200 posts time.