NCCU and the MCF

[Roger de Coverly]

Should I make noises and grunts on the sidelines?
Well, yes, I suppose I should. Through my club I suppose.
But they're a nice bunch of chaps (no chappesses unfortunately) and not spoiling for a fight. They just want to play chess.

The dispute over whether a Greater Manchester County Chess Association should or could be part of the Northern Counties Chess Union is thirty nine years old and counting. It seems to me that the apathy of Lancashire clubs and players is at least in part to blame. If players were to attend meetings and tell the serial feud-mongers to make peace or be voted out of office, the dispute could have been resolved by about 1990. Even that would have been ten to fifteen years too late.

[Michael Farthing]

Should I make noises and grunts on the sidelines?
Well, yes, I suppose I should. Through my club I suppose.
But they're a nice bunch of chaps (no chappesses unfortunately) and not spoiling for a fight. They just want to play chess.

The dispute over whether a Greater Manchester County Chess Association should or could be part of the Northern Counties Chess Union is thirty nine years old and counting. It seems to me that the apathy of Lancashire clubs and players is at least in part to blame. If players were to attend meetings and tell the serial feud-mongers to make peace or be voted out of office, the dispute could have been resolved by about 1990. Even that would have been ten to fifteen years too late.

The irony is that Greater Manchester is now a historic county and no longer exists except as a sort of homeopathic shadow!
Nevertheless, as the chess association clearly exists and is clearly the effective association in that area formerly constituting the Greater Manchester Metropolitan County and since the North begins at Manchester I am thoroughly on the side of admission. In addition to which, it might breathe some new life into a rather lifeless county competition. [Just to get the position straight]

Is it apathy? I have a 36/39th excuse since I've only been active in chess in Lancashire for three years, but I think apathy is a bit pejorative. We all have many activities and concerns in life and have to be selective about the ones we select to pursue with vigour. The NCCU is fundamentally there to run an inter-county competition and this in practice involves a minority of Lancashire players. I have no figures for the county, but my own club has I think seven players who have played for Lancashire over the last three years out of a membership of around 16-20 over the same period. Of those 7 I think that only one, possibly 2, see county matches as an important part of their chess playing. For the rest of us it's a bit of a change, a bit of an honour and a bit of a hassle. Fighting its political battles is low on the agenda - it's less important, for example, than addressing the issue of whether and how frequently first team players should be allowed to play in the second team: and actually we find it difficult to get over-excited about that except in the car back after losing a match.

[Roger de Coverly]

The NCCU is fundamentally there to run an inter-county competition and this in practice involves a minority of Lancashire players. I have no figures for the county, but my own club has I think seven players who have played for Lancashire over the last three years out of a membership of around 16-20 over the same period. Of those 7 I think that only one, possibly 2, see county matches as an important part of their chess playing.

I never really understood what the problem was with the creation of the Greater Manchester Chess County, still less that it could sustain a dispute for forty years. If I had an understanding at all, it was something to do with eligibility for county matches and that GMCCA was in some manner "stealing" players who "belonged" to Lancashire. It was representatives of the Lancashire County Chess Association who attended NCCU meetings and maintained the continued exclusion of Greater Manchester. Arguably it's whoever or whatever constitutes the voting membership of the Lancashire association who had, for that matter have the power to bring it to an end.

[Sean Hewitt]

The obvious solution now is for Yorkshire, Manchester and any other like minded county to form their own union. Leave Lancashire and the dinosaurs to their own devices.

[Mick Norris]

The obvious solution now is for Yorkshire, Manchester and any other like minded county to form their own union. Leave Lancashire and the dinosaurs to their own devices.

That would be a pity, but not impossible as Martin Regan suggested it as a way round the veto a few years ago

[MartinCarpenter]

Deeply tempting but it would be a bit of a wrench to stop the wars of the roses
(Also not entirely fair to punish the apathetic Lancashire players for the attitude of a few of their representatives.).

What does strike me as entirely viable would be for Yorkshire to unilaterally stay playing 'county matches' (as friendlies) against Manchester. Why ever not?

[Andrew Zigmond]

The obvious solution now is for Yorkshire, Manchester and any other like minded county to form their own union. Leave Lancashire and the dinosaurs to their own devices.

Would that new Union be recognised by the ECF? It would be a sixth Union and would leave one (the existing NCCU) with effectively one County which wouldn't go down well with the rest of the country. And if the ECF recognised it there could well be litigation from Lancashire. It might, however, focus Lancashire players on asking why this situation has been allowed to happen.

[Sean Hewitt]

The obvious solution now is for Yorkshire, Manchester and any other like minded county to form their own union. Leave Lancashire and the dinosaurs to their own devices.

Would that new Union be recognised by the ECF? It would be a sixth Union and would leave one (the existing NCCU) with effectively one County which wouldn't go down well with the rest of the country. And if the ECF recognised it there could well be litigation from Lancashire. It might, however, focus Lancashire players on asking why this situation has been allowed to happen.

Difficult for the ECF not to recognise them given that they've recognised new unions carved out of old union territory in the past. Obviously, Lancashire could apply to join such a new union, provided that Manchester don't veto them.

It's difficult to imagine what litigation Lancashire could bring. Even if you accept the premise that they have the right of veto over Manchester joining the NCCU, no one has claimed that they have the power to prevent another member county from leaving the NCCU.

Obviously this is not the action that you'd ideally want to take, but something has to change in order for Lancashire to rethink their position. Such action might galvanise players to ask questions of their reps! I suspect it will need Yorkshire to lead this for Lancashire to take notice.

[Martin Regan]

It always seemed to me that the problem was the inability of both sides to accept serious compromise. Yet the people involved, in one way or the other, Mick, Bill O Rourke, Harry Lamb and Dave Cole are passionate people who all want the best for chess. Lancashire's problem is that thanks to JTS (Rip) it has absolutist position. Manchester's problem is that it wishes to be admitted on its own terms. i.e that the Greater Manchester boundaries (which no longer really exist) should be respected. There are only two options, I can see. Either a new union excluding Lancs and probably Cumbria - or Manchester capitulates to gain entry. This would involve accepting that areas such as Bolton, Rochdale, even Oldham and Bury fall under the Lancs remit. I believe if they did, then within five years the players of those areas would themselves be dictating where the boundaries between the two associations lay. The fundamental fact, however, is that Manchester being excluded from the NCCU is a farce.

[Sean Hewitt]

It always seemed to me that the problem was the inability of both sides to accept serious compromise. Yet the people involved, in one way or the other, Mick, Bill O Rourke, Harry Lamb and Dave Cole are passionate people who all want the best for chess. Lancashire's problem is that thanks to JTS (Rip) it has absolutist position. Manchester's problem is that it wishes to be admitted on its own terms. i.e that the Greater Manchester boundaries (which no longer really exist) should be respected. There are only two options, I can see. Either a new union excluding Lancs and probably Cumbria - or Manchester capitulates to gain entry. This would involve accepting that areas such as Bolton, Rochdale, even Oldham and Bury fall under the Lancs remit. I believe if they did, then within five years the players of those areas would themselves be dictating where the boundaries between the two associations lay. The fundamental fact, however, is that Manchester being excluded from the NCCU is a farce.

In football, there are several 'overlapping' counties, where certain parts of the country are considered to be part of two counties simultaneously. For example, Chesterfield is part of both Derbyshire and Sheffield & Hallamshire, whilst north Manchester is part of both Manchester and Lancashire. There's no reason not to adopt a similar principle here if there was a will to find a solution.

[Roger de Coverly]

There's no reason not to adopt a similar principle here if there was a will to find a solution.

I had always supposed that the Greater Manchester Chess County wanted no more than the concessions given to Merseyside (from Lancs and Cheshire) and to Cleveland (from Durham and Yorkshire). In the SCCU there weren't any disputes because there was a general agreement not to set up any new counties and to retain existing boundaries.

I'm not sure why Manchester wished to become a county for the purposes of national competitions, when in similar geographical circumstances Birmingham and Bristol didn't. Did being a founder member of the BCF come in to it? The Manchester league outranked the Lancs Chess Association by being a founder member of the BCF and then the ECF.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

In football, there are several 'overlapping' counties, where certain parts of the country are considered to be part of two counties simultaneously. For example, Chesterfield is part of both Derbyshire and Sheffield & Hallamshire, whilst north Manchester is part of both Manchester and Lancashire. There's no reason not to adopt a similar principle here if there was a will to find a solution.

Surely the problem here is at the county-union level, which is a different matter? Or are you proposing that a county (here, Greater Manchester) be part of two unions simultaneously? That might work, though if it was that simple, it would have been suggested before, surely? FWIW, there are parts of the chess world that belong to two counties at the same time. The example I'm aware of is Richmond and Twickenham Chess Club which is part of both Surrey and Middlesex. The borough of Richmond itself straddles the county border, I believe, though I'm not sure of the full history there (the full history of the changes in counties in and around Greater London is easy to look up on the internet).

Roger has mentioned the Richmond-Twickenham and Surrey-Middlesex thing before: http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 853#p87853

[Neil Graham]

There's no reason not to adopt a similar principle here if there was a will to find a solution.

I had always supposed that the Greater Manchester Chess County wanted no more than the concessions given to Merseyside (from Lancs and Cheshire) and to Cleveland (from Durham and Yorkshire). In the SCCU there weren't any disputes because there was a general agreement not to set up any new counties and to retain existing boundaries.

I'm not sure why Manchester wished to become a county for the purposes of national competitions, when in similar geographical circumstances Birmingham and Bristol didn't. Did being a founder member of the BCF come in to it? The Manchester league outranked the Lancs Chess Association by being a founder member of the BCF and then the ECF.

The East Anglian Chess Union was formed in 1983 as a split from the SCCU and the MCCU. It's formation and affiliation to the British Chess Federation was opposed at the time by the Northern Counties Chess Union who had some idea that a prophet came down with the Union boundaries written on tablets of stone.

As yet we still have no-one on this forum who actually attended the NCCU General Meeting - is there anyone who can actually report on what happened?

[Andrew Zigmond]

As yet we still have no-one on this forum who actually attended the NCCU General Meeting - is there anyone who can actually report on what happened?

As far as I know the only likely attendees who contribute to this forum are Ihor Lewyk and Bill Metcalfe and they may not see it as a priority to post a report on here.

[IM Jack Rudd]

There's certainly precedent for a county's being in two unions simultaneously - Cambridgeshire had teams in both the SCCU and EACU competitions when I was playing there.