Selection of England teams

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Roger de Coverly
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Selection of England teams

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Oct 17, 2021 11:36 am

There's mention elsewhere on the Chess History board of a selection tournament for a place in the team at the 1964 Olympiad.

Was this something of a one-off? I get the impression that England teams were usually selected by a committee or panel and that automatic rights by virtue of performances in the British Championship or elsewhere were a rarity. There was also the precedent of 1958 where it might seem the selectors didn't want to invite the then British champion, so they reduced the number of players to five.

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John Saunders
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by John Saunders » Sun Oct 17, 2021 12:49 pm

Re the Faz business in 1958, Leonard Barden has already given us the inside story:

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9632&p=214113&hili ... 58#p214113
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John Saunders
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by John Saunders » Sun Oct 17, 2021 1:28 pm

As regards the 1964 BCF Selection Tournament, there is a bit of factual information wanting as regards the second part of the tournament. We know the first part of the tournament took place alongside the Ilford Premier at Whitsun (15-18 May 1964) but the date and venue for the second part are unclear. In his BCM report (September 1964, p253) Peter Clarke fails to mention a venue and gives the date as "over the August Bank Holiday" but this must be wrong as the result was given in Leonard Barden's Guardian column in mid-August. The dates I have for the second half games are 31 July - 3 August 1964 but I'm no longer sure where I got that info. Perhaps Leonard could tell us where the games were played.

In the other thread Ken Norman tells us that the tie for the last berth in the Olympiad team between Franklin and Golombek was never resolved by match play. As he puts it, "the BCF decided that as Michael Franklin had beaten Golombek twice in the qualifying tournament he should be given the place in the British Team at Tel Aviv."
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Pete Morriss
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by Pete Morriss » Sun Oct 17, 2021 1:56 pm

Wasn't the UK August Bank Holiday at the beginning of the month back then? That would make Peter Clarke's account consistent with Leonard Barden's.

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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by NickFaulks » Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:04 pm

Pete Morriss wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 1:56 pm
Wasn't the UK August Bank Holiday at the beginning of the month back then? That would make Peter Clarke's account consistent with Leonard Barden's.
Well remembered, 1964 was the last such year ( in England, anyway ).
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Leonard Barden
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by Leonard Barden » Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:15 pm

John Saunders wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 1:28 pm
As regards the 1964 BCF Selection Tournament, there is a bit of factual information wanting as regards the second part of the tournament. We know the first part of the tournament took place alongside the Ilford Premier at Whitsun (15-18 May 1964) but the date and venue for the second part are unclear. In his BCM report (September 1964, p253) Peter Clarke fails to mention a venue and gives the date as "over the August Bank Holiday" but this must be wrong as the result was given in Leonard Barden's Guardian column in mid-August. The dates I have for the second half games are 31 July - 3 August 1964 but I'm no longer sure where I got that info. Perhaps Leonard could tell us where the games were played.
My recollection is that the second half was also played at Ilford. I stayed wirh Peter Clarke, as I normally did at Ilford. As I recall, as we reached Peter's front door after the final round of my dire performance, I told him that it would be my last tournament. And so it was for five years, although I made a comeback in 1969-72.

Reverting to Roger's original question, I was partly responsible for the decision to hold a selection tournament, according to what Bob Wade, who was on the committee, told me.
I had scored 60% (best percentage on the team) at Leipzig 1960 and 67% (second best after Penrose) at Varna 1962, but had played little in the next two years. As it turned out, the selectors' doubts were justified.

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John Saunders
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by John Saunders » Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:38 pm

Pete Morriss wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 1:56 pm
Wasn't the UK August Bank Holiday at the beginning of the month back then? That would make Peter Clarke's account consistent with Leonard Barden's.
Many thanks for that, Pete. I did check the internet for the dates of the August Bank Holiday in 1964 and all sites at the top of search results list seemed to suggest it was the end of the month as now. My fault for trusting the internet...
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John Saunders
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by John Saunders » Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:43 pm

Leonard Barden wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:15 pm

My recollection is that the second half was also played at Ilford. I stayed with Peter Clarke, as I normally did at Ilford. As I recall, as we reached Peter's front door after the final round of my dire performance, I told him that it would be my last tournament. And so it was for five years, although I made a comeback in 1969-72.
Many thanks, Leonard. I'm in the process of updating the BritBase record for the 1964 Ilford and BCF Selection tournaments and I will record the venue there.
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David Sedgwick
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by David Sedgwick » Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:19 pm

Leonard Barden wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:15 pm
My recollection is that the second half was also played at Ilford. I stayed wirh Peter Clarke, as I normally did at Ilford. As I recall, as we reached Peter's front door after the final round of my dire performance, I told him that it would be my last tournament. And so it was for five years, although I made a comeback in 1969-72.
I am quite sure that you played at Hammersmith at Easter 1973. I was a fellow competitor.

That tournament was won jointly by Bojan Kurajica and Tim Harding (of this parish). Decades later I had the opportunity to ask each of them, on separate occasions, of their memories of the event. Kurajica didn't recall it at all. Harding certainly did; he told me that it was his best ever tournament result.

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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by Leonard Barden » Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:32 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:19 pm
Leonard Barden wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 2:15 pm
My recollection is that the second half was also played at Ilford. I stayed wirh Peter Clarke, as I normally did at Ilford. As I recall, as we reached Peter's front door after the final round of my dire performance, I told him that it would be my last tournament. And so it was for five years, although I made a comeback in 1969-72.
I am quite sure that you played at Hammersmith at Easter 1973. I was a fellow competitor.

That tournament was won jointly by Bojan Kurajica and Tim Harding (of this parish). Decades later I had the opportunity to ask each of them, on separate occasions, of their memories of the event. Kurajica didn't recall it at all. Harding certainly did; he told me that it was his best ever tournament result.
Yes, you're right, my bad. My final game at Hammersmith 1973 was I think a draw with Speelman who played 2 Nc3 against the Sicilian after being advised by Bob Wade to take me out of theory.

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John Saunders
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by John Saunders » Sun Oct 17, 2021 4:47 pm

I've now refreshed the record of the 1964 BCF Olympiad Selection Tournament and 1964 Ilford Premier at BritBase...

https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/1 ... iewer.html

... and garnished it with contemporary reports, crosstables, results of subsidiary events at Ilford (including future GMs), viewer and photos.

I've just updated it with a paragraph that appears in the 1964/65 Yearbook. Despite a couple of minor inaccuracies, the unattributed BCF report tells us that the second part of the tournament was actually played at Eileen Tranmer's home in Acton over the August Bank Holiday. It also tells us that Bob Wade had been invited to compete as a sixth player but "was unable to accept the conditions laid down". It also confirms Ken Norman's comment here that Franklin was preferred to Golombek by virtue of a superior head-to-head score (though whoever prepared the BCF piece managed to get the figure slightly wrong).
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John Saunders
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by John Saunders » Sun Oct 17, 2021 5:45 pm

The 1964/65 BCF Yearbook also had an earlier piece on the same subject, evidently written (by the hon.sec. Alan Stammwitz) before the decision to send Franklin and not Golombek had been made...
Alan Stammwitz in the 1964/65 BCF Yearbook wrote:In an endeavour to select the strongest possible team to represent us in the forthcoming Olympiad which is to take place in Tel-Aviv next November your Selection Committee in selecting Messrs. Penrose, Kottnauer, Clarke and Littlewood (N), decided that the remaining two places should be decided on the result of a double-round Candidates Tournament to be contested by Barden, Franklin, Golombek, Haygarth, Hindle and Wade. Of these all but the latter were able to accept the conditions as laid down. The first rounds were played during the Ilford Whitsun Congress by kind co-operation of the Congress Committee, whilst the second stage of the Tournament took place through the courtesy of Eileen Tranmer, who made herself personally responsible for arranging for this to be held at her home over the August Bank Holiday weekend. As a result of this tournament Hindle qualified for one of the two remaining places. The final place in the team will be decided by the Selection Committee as there was a tie for the second place between Franklin and Golombek and it was found to be impossible to arrange for a play-off in the time available before the names of members of the team had to be submitted to the organisers. C. H. O’D. Alexander has been appointed as non-playing Match Captain, which should certainly be a great asset to the team in view of his previous experience as a member of our team in the past.
I was also curious as to who made up the Selection Committee and the yearbook also had the answer to that question...

RJ Broadbent, PH Clarke, W Evans, MJ Haygarth, J Penrose, VJ Soanes, AF Stammwitz, ARB Thomas and the Chairman of the Executive Committee [GW Henlen] ex-officio, together with WA Fairhurst for Great Britain matches only

I was surprised to see Wilfred Evans in there, and I would be equally surprised if anyone on this forum, other than Roger de Coverly and me, had the foggiest idea who he was. I remember him as a colleague of mine (and Roger's) in the Bucks county team of the late 1960s. He was a player of around Elo 2000 strength and seemed about 200 years old to my teenage self. He resembled Chalkie the schoolteacher in Giles cartoons, although the fag forever hanging from his lips as he sat at the board was rather more Andy Capp. If someone had told me he was the chap who invented the gambit, I might have half-believed them. He lived in Chorleywood and played for the Amersham club, I think. He was also the SCCU grader at one time. I looked up his BMD records a year or two ago and discovered he was born in 1897, hence only slightly older than I am now when I first came across him. I think he may have transferred his allegiance from Bucks to Berkshire at some later date and he died in Reading in 1985. I'm sure he was a perfectly decent chap but it does surprise me to see him amongst better known names being responsible for Olympiad selections. Perhaps his knowledge of grading was the key factor.

Returning slightly reluctantly to Roger's initial question (like all die-hard forumites/termites, I'm happiest when off-topic), I think the mode of team selection used in 1964 was a one-off as I've not come across it before or since whilst browsing the back pages of English chess history.
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David Sedgwick
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by David Sedgwick » Sun Oct 17, 2021 6:57 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 1:10 pm
John Saunders wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 3:49 pm
We don't want to go off-topic.
Why ever not?
David Sedgwick wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:32 pm
This Forum has a long tradition of threads going wildly off topic and of posters making the same point in several threads.
John Saunders wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 5:45 pm
... like all die-hard forumites/termites, I'm happiest when off-topic...
I'm pleased that you're learning.

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John Saunders
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by John Saunders » Sun Oct 17, 2021 7:12 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 6:57 pm
David Sedgwick wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 1:10 pm
John Saunders wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 3:49 pm
We don't want to go off-topic.
Why ever not?
David Sedgwick wrote:
Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:32 pm
This Forum has a long tradition of threads going wildly off topic and of posters making the same point in several threads.
John Saunders wrote:
Sun Oct 17, 2021 5:45 pm
... like all die-hard forumites/termites, I'm happiest when off-topic...
I'm pleased that you're learning.
:lol: :lol: :lol: - I know how you enjoy cataloguing my many written contradictions, David. May you go on doing so for years to come.
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Gerard Killoran
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Re: Selection of England teams

Post by Gerard Killoran » Mon Oct 18, 2021 11:45 am

I think the mode of team selection used in 1964 was a one-off as I've not come across it before or since whilst browsing the back pages of English chess history.
A precedent was the The Cable Test Tournament of 1905

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=6645

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