Chess club folds

[Ernie Lazenby]

Today I learned that one of our long established chess clubs has folded apparently after the person who has ran it for many decades decided to call a halt and no other member was prepared to take it on. I found this quite sad because the aforementioned individual is someone I have known for over 40 years and in truth he's been the foundation of the club, extremely supportive of chess, running junior clubs amongst his many achievements/organising ability. I guess his age has been a factor coupled with a diminishing squad. I know some of the current squad are moving to other local clubs so it's not all bad news.

Anyway I ask is this a trend ie chess clubs folding or losing support. Maybe not because another club in our area is going from strength to strength including a very active junior section. That is due in my view to the age of those involved in the organisation, relative to myself quite young.

[MartinCarpenter]

In general yes. Some loss of player numbers, but also a fair bit of consolidation into bigger clubs going on everywhere. Like the Yorkshire league - no clubs for Doncaster, Rotheram etc but a mass of Sheffield teams instead. Top division teams probably as strong (stronger even) as ever.

It got really quite bad last year just a tiny bit North in the Durham league Darlington doing OK but also really were a bit lucky in terms of that league winning squad parachuting in from various places

[Matt Mackenzie]

No chess clubs at all in Doncaster or Rotherham?? That's pretty amazing, tbh

(IIRC there was a "biggest town/city without a club" thread back in the day)

[Andrew Zigmond]

No chess clubs at all in Doncaster or Rotherham?? That's pretty amazing, tbh

(IIRC there was a "biggest town/city without a club" thread back in the day)

Doncaster chess club still exists as far as I'm aware, they're just not currently able to run a team in the Yorkshire League.

[Niall Doran]

While it's laudable that someone takes on the responsibility of running a chess club, and keeps it going for so long, it's important to involve other people, gradually training someone up to a sufficient level that that person can take over the running of the club if need be. If nothing else, it lightens the load and if the worst should ever happen, the club shouldn't go down the swanny.

It's always going to be hard to suddenly replace someone who looked after opening the club, organising/giving lessons to juniors, captaining a team, collecting fees, applying for grants, attending league meetings etc, as they'll either be daunted by the task, unable to do everything, or just won't have the time.

Having said that, it's not always easy finding people who want to do more than turn up, play chess and then go home.

[MartinCarpenter]

There seems to be a small Doncaster league, perhaps not a central Doncaster club anymore. They had a reasonable Yorkshire league team until very recently though. Rotheram even seem to have won the Yorkshire league in 1979 but do now seem to be maybe reduced to a team in the third division of the Sheffield league Fairly sure until recently a Rotheram 'junior' team higher up in the league too but I can't see it on chessnuts now. Not sure.

The Yorkshire league really has got quite concentrated to the bigger cities - something like 5(+?) Sheffield teams, 4 Bradford, 4 York, 6 Leeds etc. If anything the top teams have been getting more solidly strong in depth mind.

[Peter Shaw]

The Rotherham juniors team merged with the Sheffield junior club (SASCA) a couple of years back. We had been a division 1 side for a number of years but got relegated and lost a number of players and got releagted again the following season so the clubs decided to merge.

[Stewart Reuben]

In case anybody thinks it is just a Northern problem, both Camden and Islington Clubs died. In the former case Alan Martin got fed up with doing everything. He asked for help at AGM, got none and resigned. This effectively killed the club.

[Francis Fields]

No clubs have folded in Surrey in recent years though I have heard that several players left one club because of the politics going on.
Does this happen in other parts of the country?

Francis

[Ian Thompson]

No clubs have folded in Surrey in recent years ...

It's no more than 7 years ago that a Surrey club folded.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"It's no more than 7 years ago that a Surrey club folded."

Actually, it's less than that I think. A new club started in the Caterham area then disappeared rapidly and I cannot remember the name at present. It did rely on the notorious two-club rule, where players can appear for two different clubs in the league as long as they play in different divisions. As one player has played for three clubs for the last two years, and people (well, probably just me) were complaining that was illegal, rules have now changed so you can play for as many clubs as you like as long as it's in different divisions. This may be keeping the odd club alive (which is good of course) and giving the illusion that all is well. Surrey does have a lot of clubs quite close together, so it is impressive they keep going.

[Niall Doran]

In case anybody thinks it is just a Northern problem, both Camden and Islington Clubs died. In the former case Alan Martin got fed up with doing everything. He asked for help at AGM, got none and resigned. This effectively killed the club.

I'd say it's more of a human nature problem. In some ways, it's easier for one person to do everything. They know what needs to be done, who needs to be contacted, how to wiggle the key in the fiddly lock to open it, where the spare sets are etc. They also know it’ll be done properly. Having several people doing different tasks requires deciding who to delegate the task to, giving them the info/training they need to do the job correctly, coordinating between the different people etc.

There is also the fact that most people just want to play chess. They’ve paid their money, they play their games, that’s it. A lot of them don’t even see the work that goes into organising something as straight forward as getting a team together for a match.

What the player sees: Captain rings them up, “Can you play on…”. Player says yes, and turns up to play on the day. Everything’s hunky dory.

What actually happens:
Captain rings up first player, ‘can you play?’ , first player says yes.
Captain rings up a second player, player doesn’t answer, captain leaves a message.
Rings up a third player, same thing.
Rings up a fourth player, ‘sorry I can’t play’
Rings up a fifth player, ‘erm… where are we playing… erm…” I tell them we’re playing away at Club X, and it’s “ah, no, that doesn’t really suit me”.
Rings up a sixth player, who says “Yes”. The joy!
Seventh player. Leave another message.
Then wait for all these players to get back to you, ‘cos you can’t ring anyone else in case all the guys you’ve left messages with answer ‘yes’.
This generally takes a couple of hours i.e. you’re evening’s shot.

I don’t know how Alan Martin asked for help, but I think sometimes even a cry for help needs to be structured correctly to have a chance of succeeding.
If someone says “I spend every minute of my spare time working for this club and as a result have no life, who wants to help me do that?” there won’t be many takers.
If however they say “I’m going to reduce the amount I do gradually over the next few months, starting with tasks X, Y and Z, so I need one person to look after each task. Ok, who can do X?”, the chances of succeeding are higher (but not guaranteed!)

[Roger de Coverly]

Then wait for all these players to get back to you, ‘cos you can’t ring anyone else in case all the guys you’ve left messages with answer ‘yes’.

It should be easier now with email, particularly if you select teams up to a month in advance and the players respond promptly to confirm their eligibility. You then know how many reserves you need and when.

But there are those who don't use email at all, or not reliably. That's not just older players, younger ones may prefer SMS, Twitter or Facebook.

[Lewis Martin]

Then wait for all these players to get back to you, ‘cos you can’t ring anyone else in case all the guys you’ve left messages with answer ‘yes’.

It should be easier now with email, particularly if you select teams up to a month in advance and the players respond promptly to confirm their eligibility. You then know how many reserves you need and when.

But there are those who don't use email at all, or not reliably. That's not just older players, younger ones may prefer SMS, Twitter or Facebook.

There are also some young players who don't use Facebook, Twitter or text!

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Captain rings up first player, ‘can you play?’ , first player says yes.
Captain rings up a second player, player doesn’t answer, captain leaves a message.
Rings up a third player, same thing.
Rings up a fourth player, ‘sorry I can’t play’
Rings up a fifth player, ‘erm… where are we playing… erm…” I tell them we’re playing away at Club X, and it’s “ah, no, that doesn’t really suit me”.
Rings up a sixth player, who says “Yes”. The joy!
Seventh player. Leave another message.
Then wait for all these players to get back to you, ‘cos you can’t ring anyone else in case all the guys you’ve left messages with answer ‘yes’.
This generally takes a couple of hours i.e. you’re evening’s shot."

You missed, "I think I can play, I'll ring you back in a couple of days to confirm." Three days later you ring him and he says, "No, I was never available to play that one."

As Roger says, it's easier with email.