Twenty-five years on ...

[Alan Jelfs]

A couple of weeks ago, I received this year's grading list through the post, and I realised it was 25 years since I first got a grade in the 1988 grading list.
So I did a comparison to see how things have changed in Scottish Chess over those years.

Personally, my new shiny 1988 grade of 1625 is now 1922, which is nice. And this year I played 72 graded games compared to 14 then.

In 1988, the top 5 players in the grading list were all IMs: Messrs Motwani, McKay, McNab, Pritchett and Condie.
In 2013, the top 5 are GMs: Aagaard, Rowson, Turner, Motwani and McNab.

There are many fewer players in the new list(2253) than in 1988(2855), but there is another interesting statistic.
Number of games processed for 1988 list: 34762. Now, the equivalent figure is 36072.
So there are fewer active players now, but they each play more games.

The most obvious difference between then and now is the decline in over-the-board league chess. In 1987/8 the Glasgow League had divisions 7a and 7b, the Lanarkshire League had 4 divisions and there was a Renfrewshire League.

As an illustration this (as I recall) was the line-up for Holy Cross in Division 4 of the Glasgow League for 1988/89:
P.Coffey, A.Stalker, M.Hanley, A.Jelfs, T.Coffey, D.Lonie, D.Ford, L.Freel. (Yes, we won the division!)

I dug out my scorebook for the 1987/88 and 1988/89 seasons to see which of my then opponents are still active.
I found the following names which are still in the current list:
D.Ross, P.Scullion, S.Smith, J.Banks, A.Gillies (a J16 graded 1990!) and D.Holmes.

Some things don't change though - in one of my games from 1988, where I'm Black in an e4/e5 game, I have added a note ?! to 5. ... Qe7. Twenty-five years on, I am still playing dubious Qe7 moves in e4/e5 games :-)

[P Griffin]

The reason for 7a and 7b was to avoid a Div 8 as it was felt that a new club
would be put off by having to climb so many divisions to get to the top one.
I Can only recall one club going from Div 6 all the way to Div 1 and that was
Strathclyde Univ, needless to say they broke up soon afterwards and the club
went defunct. Since then sadly too many other clubs have also disappeared

[Alan Jelfs]

The reason for 7a and 7b was to avoid a Div 8 as it was felt that a new club
would be put off by having to climb so many divisions to get to the top one.
I Can only recall one club going from Div 6 all the way to Div 1 and that was
Strathclyde Univ, needless to say they broke up soon afterwards and the club
went defunct. Since then sadly too many other clubs have also disappeared

What about Buddies Bar? When I joined them in about 1990/1 they were in Division 4 and eventually made it to Div 1. Did they start from the bottom or did they inherit the position of a previous Linwood or Johnstone team?

Edit after checking GCL archive - Buddies Bar won Div 7 in 86/87, Strathclyde Uni won it in 84/85.

Again, Buddies is another club sadly now defunct.

[P Griffin]

That Buddies Bar made the 1st division was actually news to me but proof that
a small club can get there though staying up is much harder. Of course its now
much easier for a new club but it seems the only new clubs who join are
short lived Univ teams. It was remarkable that so many good chess players were
at Strathclyde at the same time.

p.s. another thing I didn't know was that the archives had been set up by the late Gerry Wilson,
a great guy.

[Ianbrownlee]

yeah Gerry was a great guy, always ready to help....

I remember getting hammered by him with a big grin and his hand thrust in the air when he won. Always the perfect gentleman Gerry tried his best to hide his delight but the occasion got the better of him. I thought I had suffered enough but then he annotated it and sent it into Scottish Chess. Seriously though Gerry helped me tremendously both as a league controller and as a friend. A great loss to chess.

[Alan Jelfs]

That Buddies Bar made the 1st division was actually news to me but proof that
a small club can get there though staying up is much harder. Of course its now
much easier for a new club but it seems the only new clubs who join are
short lived Univ teams. It was remarkable that so many good chess players were
at Strathclyde at the same time.

p.s. another thing I didn't know was that the archives had been set up by the late Gerry Wilson,
a great guy.

That's the worst thing about being in chess for so long - the people who are no longer with us like Gerry, Walter Munn, Richard Wiltshire or Gordon MacArainn.

Buddies actually made Div 1 twice but were relegated straightaway both times. The first time we did respectably including a draw with Crowwood and a win over Bearsden, but the second time we lost every game (though never defaulted a board). I managed 1 point from 9 games on board 2 (thank you Dougie Will!). The demoralisation from that second season played a large part in the demise of the club, I think.
My "all-time Buddies Bar select team" - Richard Wiltshire, Richard Cochrane, Joe Galbraith, Alistair Watson, Yours Truly, Frank Hughes, Bill Elliot, Steve Riley.