Post
by Richard James » Thu Aug 19, 2010 11:24 am
Firstly, I rather think this should be a separate thread. Carl?
Yes, Paul, I think it was 1979. Of course the other thing that happened was the transition, in most of the country, from selective to non-selective secondary education. While we could argue all day about the advantages and disadvantages of this, it's still possible, as Paul Bielby and Neill Cooper, for example, have proved, to get a chess culture going in selective secondary schools, but I guess it's very hard in non-selective secondary schools. The Surrey Schools League thrives because the London Boroughs of Kingston and Sutton (I believe) have a grammar school system and there are a lot of selective independent secondary schools elsewhere in Surrey.
Anecdotally:
I spent 32 years running Richmond Junior Chess Club: many of our former members (though not as many as I would have liked) are still active in chess, some, but by no means all, became GMs and IMs, and several of our former members are active on this forum. I spent 15 years running chess clubs in primary and prep schools across the Borough of Richmond. A very small number (1% or less) continued playing competively into secondary schools, but none, to my knowledge, became active in adult competitive chess. I also spent two short periods of time running small and superficially unsuccessful chess groups at a fairly small comprehensive school in Richmond. One player from the first group, now in his twenties, although he did not achieve much academic success, currently has a grade of 195. One player from the second group, now at university, has a grade of 188.
Go figure!