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Commonwealth Championships - Alex McFarlane - 06-12-2013
I am pleased to confirm that the Commonwealth Championships will be held in Glasgow from 30 June - 8 July 2014.
The playing venue will be in Cathedral Street in the Centre of Glasgow so ideal for commuting.
This is slightly earlier than normal but is to allow those wishing to stay to do so at reasonable costs. People are arriving early for the Commonwealth Games (athletic) starting on 23rd July and this is reflected in hotel prices and availability during the normal dates.
An entry form will be available in the very near future.
The main event will take place from 1.45pm daily. Junior Championships will be held from 9am.
Alex
Re: Commonwealth Championships - Craig Pritchett - 06-12-2013
Well done, Alex ... but where in "Cathedral Street"?
Trust it's not in the vast crater recently created there last June/July, where the last remaining buildings of the old Allan Glen's School were finally demolished!! Strachclyde university (site owners) allowed invited groups to tour the building just before it went into oblivion ... I turned my invite down.
Older folk will know of the old Allan Glen's School links with chess, going back to the 1960s (the school itself eventually closed in the 1970s). Sounds like the old boys ought to enter the Commonwealth Champs next year and have a great chess reunion (sadly there were no "old" girls in this quaintly all-boys institution, except for a very late last decade or so in its 100 year history, when it went comprehensive).
The old school could still be pretty competitive these days, too. In chronologically descending order and only selecting perhaps the best-known and still very active names, we could turn out: Eddie Davis, myself, Alan Scrimgour, Roddy McKay, Stephen Swanson and Walter Buchanan (plus a great "bench", believe me).
Great venue!
Re: Commonwealth Championships - amuir - 06-12-2013
Craig
Allan Glens were Glasgow Schools champions in 1964, 1965, 1967-1971 (Hutchesons 1966)
They then tailed off. St Mungos 1972, St Leonards 1973
In 1974 St Aloysius/Lanark shared 1st - we beat Glens 3.5-2.5 . Walter Buchanan & George Moultrie (2nd in the 1975 Scottish Boys) were in the team then.
Re: Commonwealth Championships - P Griffin - 07-12-2013
Presumably there must have been a very keen teacher at AG's ?
Re: Commonwealth Championships - amuir - 07-12-2013
Craig, how can John Glendinning be on the bench ? He played above you in the 1965 winning Glorney team.
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As a lifelong employee of Scottish Amicable, he didn't play top level chess after the late 1960s as the actuarial exams were very demanding. (My form dipped in the early 1980s for a similar reason).However he was a prolific organiser, organising plenty of junior chess in the 1970s and also the Karpov simul in 1984.
Did AG have a regular chess club at lunch time or coaching ?
At St Aloysius we had our chess club after school on a friday and played other schools midweek in the evening. A teacher always accompanied us to matches. Primary players in P6 & P7 were compulsory encouraged to play in the school chess tournament with time given off lessons and the late Gerry Wilson of Polytechnic picked me for the secondary school team when I was still in short trousers at the primary. I don't remember much coaching, just lots of games, I played about 100 match games in 1974 and about 150 in 1975
Re: Commonwealth Championships - Craig Pritchett - 07-12-2013
Andy: you could have fun filling out the "bench" and/or doing any substitution you fancy! I only listed "still very active" players (two in the list are active in England rather than Scotland these days). John Glendinning (and many, many others I could name) could indeed still play a mean game today but he (and they) gave up playing club and tournament chess more or less completely eons ago!! Perhaps we should place John in the manager's role!!!
Alex: still keen in due course to hear of the actual Cathedral Street venue ... it is indeed an iconic part of old Glasgow ... and not just linked with chess.
Acknowledgements: as those who have purchased my beginner's manual "Chess for Rookies" may know, "I owe a special debt to Mr Jack Goldin (1922-1996), a mathematics teacher ... whose hard work in ensuring that the [Allan Glen's] school chess club developed into the largest and strongest in Scotland was critical in my chess development" (p.9).
Re: Commonwealth Championships - WBuchanan - 07-12-2013
A maths teacher Mr Gardner ran the school chess club most efficiently for I think the first 4 years I was there (mid-70 to 74) , before moving somewhere on the west coast to take up a position of headmaster. JL Gardner could hold his own against his crop of juniors (Steve Swanson excepted), but didn’t play often. He took us to matches and provided the whole chess environment (and encouragement, tournament notices etc) which I regret to say to say I rather took for granted. I sometimes wonder what became of him. I guess the head wouldn’t run a club, but I sometimes wonder if he played or still plays locally. He was a young teacher then and it’s possible he only retired recently so I’d be interested if anybody has any information.
The club met on Thursdays after classes and for me it added a real glow to that day of the week. Craig, did Mr Goldin invent the coloured chess badge system at Glens? I always assumed it was Mr Gardner. The metal badges looked quite impressive - I think the order was red, orange, yellow, green (?) and finally blue which was like, GM title. I saw a blue one once in Mr G’s drawer and I didn’t follow any lessons the next day. It was quite cool to wear one of these badges – there was one guy who having won the first three, wore them all and he was also in a the rugby team that won something which meant he could wear a stripe so his blazer looked like the one in Andrew McHarg’s moniker. Trying to see it all now from the educational point of view, it was great for us to be able to choose something to be enthusiastic about, and the school had loads of clubs and societies, all run by the goodwill of teachers of course – a vast additional resource that seemed to go unappreciated by the powers that be.
So the building is gone – a bit sad at that, need to take a walk up and see. Thanks for the reflections.
Re: Commonwealth Championships - amuir - 07-12-2013
Did the mid 1960s Glen's team make team selection by the badge system ? How was the team selected ?
Did the following 5 players ever play in the same team : Eddie Davis, John Glendinning, Craig Pritchett, Alan Scrimgour & Roddy McKay (they are similar ages) ?
My school chess career was from 1969-1975 and the team was picked from performances in the school championships and the annual September Langside Congress. I was given a school chess tie with rooks on (instead of the normal striped one) about 1972 but I didn't get my first grade till 1973.
Re: Commonwealth Championships - Craig Pritchett - 10-12-2013
I don't recall a chess "badge" system (I left June 67) ... and I might just have forgotten!!
Davis, Glendinning, Pritchett, Scrimgour almost certainly played in a team together "sometime". Leaving Eddie Davis (the oldest of that list) aside, the remaining three (certainly the last two) almost certainly played with Roddy McKay in the team, too.
Re: Commonwealth Championships - Alastair White - 10-12-2013
I played on board 2 for Heriots against Allan Glens in the 'Sunday Times' knockout in the early 60's. At that time the top boards were Batchelor and Ian Jardine - I can't remember the rest. But I do remember we lost 5-1. Guess who won (with a queen sac leading to forced mate)!