Welcome to our club's website. Visit regularly as I'll be updating the site several times a month. If you've got anything you'd like to share, send it to me at the address below. Click for details of where & when.
Malcolm Mourant reports on the end-of-season events.
Have a good summer, and see you in September. If you play any interesting games, don't forget to send them to me at the usual address!
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.
On a grim bank holiday Monday, I've finally added a few games to our website, including:
Thanks to Neil, David & Rawle for supplying two of these and their notes. Other comments are from Fritz 11. I'll add any games that you fancy sending me (electronically, please).
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.
I [Fred] have been given an article in the British Chess Magazine from 1920 that clearly indicates that the Bromley (no Beckenham) Chess Club did reform after the War. More Club History...
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).
About a year ago, I got an email from a Mr. Hendrik Chervet at the Royal Library in The Hague:
I would like to informe you that from our stacks a little piece of Bromley Chess Club history emerged. The handwritten minutes and the match-results of the years 1889-1903.
This notebook also includes some newspapercuttings.
Please forward this information to some one with an interest in the clubhistory.
I passed the contact to our club chairman and author, Fred Wellings, who obtained the minutes, and has been following up the story from other sources, including records at the British Library (amazing!) and the the club's own archives which date back to the 60's.
Fred has now written this up in this fascinating short history of Beckenham Chess Club.
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.
Another update from Club Captain, Malcolm Mourant: some information about how the club is doing over all competitions - not bad actually.
For Kent Leagues, the end of December chart from the Kent tournament controller. I think there may be some results missing, and I am not quite sure why, but it gives the general picture so far. You will see that Beckenham and Bromley seem to be quite well placed in most leagues at the moment.
In the London Leagues, our first team playing in Division 2 have won 4 matches and there is one match still undecided. This places us third in the league. The first two clubs have the same number of points as us but better game scores.
Our second team, playing in the Minor Division, have 1½ points out of 2. This puts us in 4th place behind 3 clubs that have played more matches than us. Furthermore, we drew with the 2nd placed club and beat the 3rd placed club.
For those who wish to get further information, including all the individual results in each match, have a look at the excellent London League website.
In the Croydon League, Division C, our West Wickham 1 team has won 2 and drawn 1 with no losses. Our West Wickham 2 team has won one and lost one [by default which may yet be overturned]. The two teams are playing each other on 10th January!
Finally, the Verney Cup is awarded to the Beckenham and Bromley player who produces the most points for the club in external competitions. From the results I have to hand, Andrew Sangster has a significant lead with 5 wins and 7 draws out of 12 games - not a single loss! The next closest is John Alderson with 4 wins and a draw out of 5 games. Overall, of the games that have been reported to me, we have won 65, drawn 57 and lost 41.
All the best in the second half of the season.
In a dull moment this summer, when I should have been playing cricket, I collected together the results from all the matches that I captained in the London League. This, then, is a summary of who scored the points in eight seasons of trying to get promoted and then trying to stay in Division 3.
For the simple reason that I played more games than anyone else, I also scored the most points. My predecessor and successor as captain came in second. The third placed player doesn't play any more, which is a pity...
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.
This is a second draft from Malcolm, and although there's usually one or two updates from here, it's likely to be pretty solid I reckon. I've added the change of the Maidstone away match to 2nd February (thanks Ian).
Please don't forget that subscriptions are now due. Treasurer Andrew Sangster will be pleased to receive your cash.
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.
The Club will now meet at the Pavilion of the Kent County Cricket Club Ground, Worsley Bridge Road, Beckenham, Kent. BR3 1RL.
To put the venue in context, it is the Sports Ground opposite our old venue on the other side of Copers Cope Road. However, the entrance is on the other side of the ground, in Worsley Bridge Road. There is on site parking.
It is easy walking distance from New Beckenham and Lower Sydenham stations. Additionally, the 352 bus stop is almost outside the place. The 352 runs from Lower Sydenham to Bromley calling at West Wickham, Bromley South and Bromley North stations and lots of places in between. It is a 20 minute service up to 9 p.m. and 30 minutes thereafter. The full timetable can be seen on the TFL site.
The Archive
For older "news" visit The Archive.