St John's Ear Chess Club

[Paul Habershon]

I am just about to get engraving up to date for the National Club Major Trophy. Small engraved plates are glued to a wooden base. Nothing was done 2007-2011 and the 2012 winners' plate has been stuck on where 2007 should be, but I am sure all can be restored. I have all the relevant club names.

Also there are two gaps where earlier plates have fallen off. One of these is for 1997 when the winners were St John's Ear (source: BCF 2004 Yearbook). Please would someone confirm that this is or was a chess club? I'm fairly certain that there isn't a typo in the yearbook, but I can find no internet mention of such a club. It's such an unbelievable name. I don't remember it, so apologies if it's famous.

[Roger de Coverly]

The results for that year reported in SCCU Bulletin archived at the SCCU site style the team as St Johns (EAR).

I don't know what the (EAR) stands for, but plausibly was it the St Johns Phoenix club of Norwich?
http://www.norfolkchess.org/clubs.htm

[Matthew Turner]

Something like East Anglia Region region I guess.

[Geoff Marchant]

This is the now defunct "St Johns, Worcester" chess club. For humerous reasons possibly known only to himself, the St Johns club secretary at the time decided to add the suffix "Ear" to the name of the club, when entering. I'm not sure how it subsequently became "St. Johns (EAR)".

[Gordon Cadden]

The Walsall Kipping Chess Club, is a founder member of this exclusive collection of chess groups with eccentric names.

[David Gostelow]

Kipping I believe is after a teacher who inspired the club , there were more than one Kipping club in the West Midlands at one time. Perhaps we could start a thread on strange club names . My club can be abbreviated to s**t ( Shifnal and Telford) I wont make judgement on whether its appropriate

[Joey Stewart]

I always thought it was named after Mr Kiplings cakes - I remember my county matches against Staffordshire featuring a great spread of nice cakes.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I always thought Mushrooms was an eye-catching name for a chess club.

Explained here, possibly:

http://mushchess.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/whoset.html

[Gordon Cadden]

And not forgetting the Drunken Knights, of course.

[John Moore]

I seem to remember Diss Chess Club in Norfolk (just) had a habit of renaming themselves for National Club as Dissaffected and other similar names. Presumably that was someone who thought it was amusing.

[John Clarke]

One of the oddest names I've ever seen for a chess club would have to be the London-domiciled Lud-Eagle. No idea when it was founded, or how it got its name, but it was still active till at least the early 1950s. Maybe Mr Barden could supply further details.

Another exotically-styled (and now defunct) club was my own old one, the Alcazar, based in Edmonton, north London. There was at any rate a reason for the name: its HQ, the Angel Road Community Centre, stood on or near the site of the Alcazar music hall, which was destroyed by bombing during the war.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I think Lud-Eagle was an insurance company.

The Civil Service League did include in the 80s "Compost", which included Cabinet Office, Man Power something, and Treasury. The acronym did work. They are now just called Treasury. At the time, there were moves afoot to get Mushrooms and Compost to play a match.

[Angus French]

To go with the Ear club there is (or was) a Nose club: the Brasen Nose Chess Club, one of the earliest in the country and of a different kind. It's written about on the Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog - follow the links near the top of this page: http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... story.html

[Roger de Coverly]

the London-domiciled Lud-Eagle. No idea when it was founded, or how it got its name, but it was still active till at least the early 1950s.

The Lud part of the name might come from the King Lud pub which may have given its name to Ludgate Circus, nearby to St Pauls Cathedral and former London league venue St Brides Institute. The club was active at least one hundred years ago as the London league show it as one of the earlier winners. There is or perhaps was an insurance group named Eagle Star. Whether they were connected in any way to Lud-Eagle isn't known to me.

[Mick Norris]

There is or perhaps was an insurance group named Eagle Star

Was - they are a dormant part of Zurich Insurance group, having been bought originally by British Allied Tobacco which owned the various businesses - Allied Dunbar and Eagle Star were kept separate and aimed at different parts of the life and pensions market, before it became fashionable to merge everything together into large organisations - no doubt someone will have the bright idea of separating them all out again, before merging some of them back together a few years later