Discuss revised England teams for 2010 Olympiad

[Alan Walton]

I think Matthew's points are very correct

Though another thing that has come out of this is that if an official annoucement is made should this be open to change or is it set in stone unless somebody drops out for other reasons

Both the ECF and the players should expect some kind of professionalism on both sides and know where they stand from the offset of all negotiations

[LozCooper]

I think Matthew's points are very correct

Though another thing that has come out of this is that if an official annoucement is made should this be open to change or is it set in stone unless somebody drops out for other reasons

Both the ECF and the players should expect some kind of professionalism on both sides and know where they stand from the offset of all negotiations

Agreed. In my mind the team was set in stone. Regardless of if or not an announcement is made I believe that once a player has been offered terms and accepted them the team shouldn't be changed.

[Gareth Harley-Yeo]

I think Matthew's points are very correct

Though another thing that has come out of this is that if an official annoucement is made should this be open to change or is it set in stone unless somebody drops out for other reasons

Both the ECF and the players should expect some kind of professionalism on both sides and know where they stand from the offset of all negotiations

Agreed. In my mind the team was set in stone. Regardless of if or not an announcement is made I believe that once a player has been offered terms and accepted them the team shouldn't be changed.

I couldn't agree more. The Olympiad is about palying for your country, not making a living.

[John Moore]

Gareth, you have gone all Corinthian. It is about playing for your country, but chess has become professional and people will negotiate terms that they find acceptable as individual players. Sir George Thomas and the other gentlemen from the 30's are long gone.

I find it difficult to comment on the Adams/Gordon situation. I wanted to see our best team at the Olympiad but I now wonder whether it was worth it all - and if I was Lawrence, I'd be mightily fed up with some of the opprobium that has gone, albeit indirectly, towards him.

[Adam Ashton]

Apologies to Loz btw for the tone of my first post, I do appreciate his situation and thank him for his responses on the forum.

I really don't think this situation should ever have arisen. If Malcolm Pein(or Adams himself) had simply informed Lawrence earlier that Adams participation was possible(instead of allowing Loz to operate under a definate 'no') am I right in thinking it would have been avoided?

Still could I suggest that perhaps in the future negotiations with Adams/Short in particular are a little more professional. The dates are known well in advance. If it is a question of money then I think the deadline for raising these funds should be the same as for the public naming of the team. If the money isn't there by then then they don't play, simple. To continue to negotiate after this seems extremely unfair on the players named unless they are specifically told they are 'stand by' players.

In any case best wishes to Loz and the team at the Olympiad.

[Simon Williams]

I must also step down and apologise.

I often go a bit over the top, I guess this is my hot blooded nature.
My original post was a gut reaction and any comments after that were made in the heat of the moment.

This is a forum and a base for free talk and it would be good to keep it that way. So Loz, please forgive me if you took my comments to heart, they were not meant to be taken that way. I guess that I am just pissed off with the way that chess has been going.

From my experience I am sick of the old BCF federation and the way that things were done. It seems to me that chess 'WAS' gradually declining for the last 30 years or so in England and this incident just seemed typical.

At least now there is a glimmer of hope and it is obviously good to see guys willing to stick their neck out and have a go.

Change is needed and sponsorship sought.

And of course I want England to get in the top 3 places at this Olympiad!

[Simon Brown]

Sorry all. Difficult to have an opinion without seeing Malcolm's statement. I'm abroad at the moment, anyone care to post a link?

[Stewart Reuben]

who can name the most recent long-running series of sponsored chess events/individuals when the source of the sponsorship was public knowledge? is it Lloyds Bank, which finished in 1994?!

Never having before noticed this thread. At least the above can be answered. British Land UK Chess Challenge is now the longest-running Engish chess business sponsor. Hastings Council are, of course, the longest-running sponsor. Lloyds Bank holds the record as the longest-running business sponsors of English chess. Gibraltar is a bit diffuse, Gibtelecom did it for the first 8 years and have now retired. Trade Wise has taken over. The Gibraltar Tourist Board have also made a huge contribution
The London Chess Classic and Michael's participation in Siberia are not sponsorship deals. They are philanthropic or benefactors. The people putting in money are anonymous.

I am pleased my choice of Lawrence Cooper as my successor as International Director meets with the approval of many of the people who post. But they should not belittle the huge achievements of David Anderton in that role.

Stewart Reuben

[David Sedgwick]

Lloyds Bank holds the record as the longest-running business sponsors of English chess.

I don't think so. The Lloyds Bank Masters ran for eighteen years. Duncan Lawrie sponsored the England teams for twenty-four years. If only they were still doing so now.

I am pleased my choice of Lawrence Cooper as my successor as International Director meets with the approval of many of the people who post. But they should not belittle the huge achievements of David Anderton in that role.

I don't think anyone's doing so. However, the younger contributors to this Forum may not fully appreciate how much David accomplished. That won't be true of Lawrence, who is a colleague of David's in Staffordshire.

[Ian Thompson]

Lloyds Bank holds the record as the longest-running business sponsors of English chess.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Sc ... ampionship) says that The Sunday Times sponsored the national schools championship for 26 years, followed by The Times for 18 years. Was Lloyds Bank's sponsorship longer than the 18 years the Lloyds Bank Masters lasted?

[Stewart Reuben]

Lloyds Bank sponsorship was indeed longer than the 18 years of their support for the Masters. Before that they also sponsored junior chess under the direction of Leonard Barden.
But I stand corrected. both Duncan Lawrie and the Sunday Times were for longer periods. It is arguable whether Duncan Lawrie can be regarded as a true sponsor, they seemed seldom to worry about publicity or public recognition. If you lump the Sunday Times and Times together, of course they have a record which will not be equalled in my lifetime! To think I played in the first Sunday Times National Schools Championship.
Sponsorship, philanthropy, the government grant, game fee and membership put together still total much less than the value of the voluntary work done around the country.

Stewart Reuben

[Leonard Barden]

Lloyds Bank sponsorship was indeed longer than the 18 years of their support for the Masters. Before that they also sponsored junior chess under the direction of Leonard Barden.

Stewart Reuben

The Lloyds Bank junior events began in 1977, the same year as the first Lloyds Bank Masters. The formal launch of the bank's chess programme was the ten-board clock simul Anatoly Karpov v England juniors in August 1977, where Karpov defeated future grandmasters Short, Hodgson, Watson and King and future IMs Hawksworth and Cummings, and conceded a solitary draw against Tony Williams, older brother of Simon Williams.

However there was a pilot Lloyds Bank event in 1976, a telex match London v New York to celebrate the bicentenary of US independence. The London team was liberally sprinkled with non-London guests including Tony Miles and Nigel Short (who defeated Joel Benjamin on an under-11 board). There was also a senior board Edward Lasker v Sir Stuart Milner-Barry where the former's first move was to express his pleasure of meeting one of the codebreakers from Bletchley Park.

The chess press gave the pilot event excellent publicity which helped ensure the full sponsorship went ahead. Both Stewart Reuben and I much admired the then annual international Swiss in Lone Pine, California, and this was an early model for the Lloyds Bank Masters, to which Stewart added his own original ideas.

Part of the reason for this sponsorship's longevity was that the strength and prize money of the Masters was built up gradually, aiming mainly at IM norms at the start (which was the need for English chess then) and enhancing up over a few years to a GM event.

[Alex Holowczak]

However there was a pilot Lloyds Bank event in 1976, a telex match London v New York to celebrate the tricentenary of US independence.

Surely it was the bicentenary in 1976?

[Leonard Barden]

Well spotted. My old history teacher would have had harsh words for me for that.. Duly admonished, I have corrected my post.

[Jonathan Rogers]

This subject has just been re-opened, and not necessarily for the better. Malcolm, who has not posted in this thread, has devoted today's Telegraph column to the matter. The main point understandably, is to acknowledge that an anonymous Telegraph reader saw Malcolm's earlier article asking for funds for Adams and has come forward to pay most of Adams' fee (with Malcolm himself apparently picking up the shortfall). Malcolm notes that the donation was offered late in the day, after the teams were selected, and he praises Lawrence for mentioning it to Gordon, and praises Gordon for withdrawing.

In case you are wondering, he does not acknowledge that the plea itself was issued after the team had been picked.

BUT ...

Malcolm also says that he issued his earlier plea for funding "at the request of the governing body" - presumably, someone very high up in the ECF.

This rather contradicts the impression we have all been under thus far, viz that Malcolm had learnt that Adams would play in Russia for a higher fee and then went off "on a jaunt of his own" in writing the column asking for extra funds. If it is correct that someone high up in the ECF asked him to make the plea, then who was it, and why did this person not consult Lawrence about what he was doing?

Perhaps it is time for CJ (as President) to find out what has been going on and to make a statement on this matter. I emphasise that there is no kind of scandal here - the desire has just been to get our best player to play for the national team! - but there are some real questions about ECF governance and co-ordination if Malcolm had been asked to make his plea, unknown to Lawrence.