There were 13 players this year, which was a little less than earlier years (football??). Ian Snape emerged as the victor with last year's winner, John Duggan, just half a point behind.
The annual juniors match against Charlton took place on 1st July at Charlton House. Some of the "juniors" were a bit long in the tooth, however. Our team consisted of Robert Maguire, Duncan Bell, Justin Brown and our token junior, Paul Andrews (who is nevertheless a relatively new player). The competition is a rapid play format of half an hour each with two games played against different opponents.
We were much too good for the opposition put up by Charlton and we won 7½ to ½. Well done to all the team.
Malcolm Mourant reports on the annual match between players from Beckenham and players from Bromley which took place at the club on Thursday 15th May.
In order to get two teams of equal numbers and roughly equal strength, it's sometimes necessary to take liberties with their addresses and so you should not be surprised to find some Bromley players in the Beckenham team and vice versa.
Although this annual event is a "friendly" match, it was nevertheless taken seriously by all concerned and it produced some perhaps surprising results [and no draws! Ed.]. Incidentally, this is the fourth time out of five that Bromley have won.
| Beckenham | Bromley | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 194 | Ian Snape | 0 | 1 | Nick Briggs | 176 |
| 2 | 164 | Neil Cannon | 1 | 0 | John Lewin | 158 |
| 3 | 140 | Andrew Ponting | 1 | 0 | Doug Vleeshouwer | 145 |
| 4 | 138 | Alan Sands | 0 | 1 | Richard Selway | 140 |
| 5 | 123 | Jon Griffiths | 0 | 1 | Malcolm Mourant | 117 |
| 6 | 112 | Steve Cousins | 0 | 1 | Andrew Sangster | 111 |
| 7 | 87 | Alan Fraser | 1 | 0 | Chris Bernard | 108 |
| 8 | 80 | Ron Huggins | 0 | 1 | Duncan Bell | 83 |
| 9 | 65 | Mike Spencer | 1 | 0 | Paul Andrews | 65 |
| 10 | 50 | Denis Rigden | 0 | 1 | Justin Brown | 30 |
Thanks are due to Howard Walden for setting the match up (and then not playing himself when an odd number of players turned up) and to Mike Spencer and John Lewin, the respective captains, for getting their players out on the night.
A date to put in your diaries, if you have not already done so, is Thursday June 26th. This is the night when we will be holding the final event of the season, the quickplay handicap competition for the "Rose Bowl".
All members are welcome and should turn up at the club as early as possible and, in any event, before 7.30 pm so as to be included in the list of players. If anyone wishes to let me know in advance that they will or will not be coming, please reply by email.
Although there's a little competitive chess left to play this season, the main inter-club tournaments are now completed. Malcolm Mourant summarises Beckenham's year as follows:
Overall, players for the club played 373 games, excluding defaults, and won 142, drew 139, and lost 92. This gives a scoring rate of 57%, which is in fact high.
We have been lucky to benefit from some new players coming into the club and, overall, the season has been very successful.
We play in 5 of the 6 leagues of the Kent leagues.
Our first team playing in Division 2 just missed coming 2nd and so just failed to get promotion to Division 1. Our second team also came third in the Minor Division. This division plays mostly for honour because there is no promotion - although there is a cash prize [sponsored by London Chess Centre Ed.] for coming first, which went to Streatham.
Our West Wickham A team, under the captaincy of Howard Walden, won their division of the Croydon League. Our West Wickham B team also plays in the same division and finished in mid table - having won the division last year.
The Verney Cup has been won this year by Andrew Sangster with 14 points, having lost only 2 out of his 22 games for the club. Second was Malcolm Mourant with 12 points, having lost only 1 game out of 17. Third was Alan Fraser with 9½ points out of 20 and fourth was John Lewin with 8 points out of 11, a fantastic success rate of 73%.
One Sunday afternoon in May, at Dartford...
What a glorious sunny day it was, which unfortunately we didn't see much of, being indoors playing in the Tom Fuller league!
The day started with a minute's silence for Ivor Smith from Petts Wood & Orpington club who passed away 10 days ago. [Kent will certainly miss Ivor. He organised the the U125 county team for some years, and prior to that I played for a couple of year's for the U150s which he also organised, even though he wasn't often on the teamsheet himself. I last saw Ivor just a few weeks ago at the Surrey match. (Ed.)].
Our original opponents, Weald of Kent, withdraw from the final as they couldn't get a team together - they had two other teams in the final, but had lost people to a Stag Weekend in Slovenia, and a hospitalisation.
Instead of awarding us the match by default, the precedent was set a couple of years ago to substitute the runners up in the event of this occuring, thus we ended up playing against Sidcup.
For various reasons, we only managed to field a team of 3 players, the Tom Fuller league being an average grade of 80, and the requirement for having played two games in the Kent league to qualify for the final.
First to romp home was James Kinsella on board 2 in about half an hour! Distracting his opponent with an attack on a pawn, leaving the Queen free to swoop in with a checkmate.
Malcolm Mourant was next to claim victory some time later after quite a challenging game that he admits had him worried at times.
Then Mike Spencer (that's me) reached a draw after a long fought out game with just a King and a Bishop against a King and a Pawn left at the end......bringing us victory with 2½ to 1½ - and we were black on the odd boards too!
The last game to finish overall was surprisingly an intro league game, a deciding game which with about 30 seconds to spare gave Weald of Kent victory.
We stayed for the presentation, but the Tom Fuller cup hadn't been returned yet, so I've no idea what it looks like yet. Overall it has been a very satisfying league to play in, especially with todays result.
Many thanks to everyone who played in this League over the last year.
This thursday, 15 May, is the club's annual Beckenham vs Bromley match, where we split the club in two geographically and play each other. If you would like to take part, please reply to Mike Spencer as soon as possible so we can draw up team lists.
Start time 7:30 as usual at the club.
Alone amongst our many teams that tried to get through the semi-finals (where did I write this before?), Mike Spencer's Tom Fuller team will be carrying the club's banner on Sunday 11th May at the Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford.
Mike describes the semi-final:
Last night was the Semi-final for the Tom Fuller division in the Kent League.
This was a home match for Beckenham & Bromley 5 vs Snodland 2. The final result was 2½ to 1½, comprising two wins, one draw, one loss for us.
Our entry into the final was secured by a very exciting and closely matched game on table 1, where Alan Fraser (87) managed to beat David Lettington (106) who ran out of time. Ron Huggins (80 [that's his grade! Ed.]) also secured a draw against previous club member Tyrone Jeffries (100).
Dome dates for your diary for the remainder of the season:
Further details will follow closer to the time on the Beckenham v Bromley and Rosebowl events.
Howard describes the new style club championship ...
The new Club Tournament for the 07/08 season will be called the Championship Ladder. Players will move up and down a league table ladder depending on their results.
The two tournament winners will be the player who is top of the League and the player with the most wins at the end of the season. To make the tournament successful you will need to update the league table after each match you play i.e. move the name plates of your last opponent and yourself to the appropriate postions on the ladder as well as record your games results on the result sheet.
The ladder and result sheet are kept with the clubs chess sets. If you do not have a name plate let me know and I can make one up for you.
Please see the detailed explanation, and thanks to Malcolm Mourant for researching the rules for this new tournament.
On 23 September Beckenham & Bromley became Kent Quickplay Champions beating Tunbridge Wells 1 in the final by 11½-4½. A very good way to start a season!
John Duggan won the Rose Bowl competition on Thursday. Congratulations, John!
After a delay because of being thrown out of our old premises, the Final of last year's club championship has taken place. After a closely fought match, Malcolm Mourant made an error on move 24 that led to his resignation a few moves later. Accordingly, Neil Cannon has retained his title.
Malcolm does have the consolation of being the winner of the Participation Trophy.