I’ll try to respond first to Peter. As regards my reference to past history, the ECF stages this event every fourth year and either 4 or 8 years ago I was told by a well-placed source (I’m hard-pressed to remember whom after all this time) that the organizational history was poor. As regards this year, the indicators were as follows:
1. Virtual absence of advance publicity. John Higgs flagged the event up on this forum only on the morning it started. The “Meet the team” page on the ECF website became active only at the same time, or in the hours immediately preceding. Of course, the absence of advance publicity isn’t conclusive but it’s an indicator.
2. Non-operational website. The dedicated Glorney Cup website
http://www.glorneycupchess.org/ was non-operational (except for selected live games) with many of the weblinks being dead – clearly not the intention, otherwise why have these links in the first place? Instead, one was referred to the chess-results website. Of course, this too isn’t conclusive.
3. England teams. I was contacted 4 days before the event began by someone involved with the England teams (and I’d like to remain on speaking terms with the person in question so I’ll call him or her X) who needed information about certain team members. With a well-organised event, that information should already have been to hand. Taken along with the absence of team identities on the website (point 1 above) it suggests that team compositions weren’t known to those who needed to know until very late in the day.
As to the Irish report, convention indicates that guests do not criticize their hosts.
Responding now to Andrew, I don’t for one moment disbelieve you. However, the fact that nothing was visibly wrong at Daventry Court isn’t inconsistent with matters getting resolved only by last-minute efforts. What I am suggesting is a prima facie deficiency in advance planning.
