1951 North of Thames v South of Thames Match
Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2024 12:42 pm
(This post started life as a reply to John Clarke's post about Henry Tribe, but it then struck me that it ought really to be a topic in its own right, so I have started this one. Inspired by John's interesting post, I have scanned the CHESS report of the match into a PDF and made it available via BritBase, for the enjoyment of those who, like me, enjoy wallowing in nostalgia.)
On 16 June 1951 there was a 500-board match between North of Thames and South of Thames staged at Central Hall, Westminster.
The full four-page report from CHESS, July 1951, may be found here:
https://www.saund.org.uk/pdf.js/web/vie ... -match.pdf
It's worth emphasising that the 16 June 1951 match was North of Thames versus South of Thames, rather than North vs South. As far as I can see, having run my eye down the team lists, there were few genuine North of England players involved, with most of the players being from the home counties. I imagine it would have been too far to travel for the day for most amateur players, then as now.
So far there are six available game scores:
(1) From the Dr Aitken collection:
(2) From the Leon Rosselson collection:
(3) From the CHESS report:
(4) Also from the CHESS report:
(5) From Brian Denman's collection of games:
(6) Just found this one...
Incidentally, it is not entirely obvious from the CHESS report who was North and who South, but I think those in the left-hand columns must have been North. When first publishing Leon Rosselson's game from the event in his game collection, I had him as 'South of Thames' in the WhiteTeam field, but I have since corrected that to 'North of Thames'.
On 16 June 1951 there was a 500-board match between North of Thames and South of Thames staged at Central Hall, Westminster.
The full four-page report from CHESS, July 1951, may be found here:
https://www.saund.org.uk/pdf.js/web/vie ... -match.pdf
It's worth emphasising that the 16 June 1951 match was North of Thames versus South of Thames, rather than North vs South. As far as I can see, having run my eye down the team lists, there were few genuine North of England players involved, with most of the players being from the home counties. I imagine it would have been too far to travel for the day for most amateur players, then as now.
So far there are six available game scores:
(1) From the Dr Aitken collection:
(2) From the Leon Rosselson collection:
(3) From the CHESS report:
(4) Also from the CHESS report:
(5) From Brian Denman's collection of games:
(6) Just found this one...
Incidentally, it is not entirely obvious from the CHESS report who was North and who South, but I think those in the left-hand columns must have been North. When first publishing Leon Rosselson's game from the event in his game collection, I had him as 'South of Thames' in the WhiteTeam field, but I have since corrected that to 'North of Thames'.