1984/85
Next up we have a tremendous series of bulletins for the 1984/85 season; links to the complete set are shown below. A number of articles on a wide range of topics caught my eye.
In the January 1985 bulletin Neil Graham discusses some disputes and how the laws of chess are applied to resolve them. As someone who, a year or so ago, had checkmated an opponent only to find that I was out of time, all I can say is that I wish I had had Neil’s advice to hand…
The same issue also includes an excellent report by Julie and Norman Lazonby on the County Championship held at the Victoria Hotel over a weekend in November 1984. Mike Alcock and Steve Burke tied for first place with 4.5 points out of 5, with the title going to Mike on tie-break (sum of opponents’ scores).
The April 1985 issue includes the full submission from Grantham CC that had led to them deservedly winning the British Chess Federation’s ‘Club of the Year’ award. In the same issue John Cooper annotates (in descriptive notation) his win against Merseyside in the British Postal Chess Federation’s Ward Higgs Trophy.
As for the league itself, West Bridgford were crowned champions for the fourth year running, winning 15 out of their 16 matches, their only loss being a 4-2 defeat at the hands of University Staff.
Finally, it is worth reiterating just how much effort – in the days before computerised word processing became commonplace – went into producing the bulletin, which would typically include ten or more pages of meticulously typewritten match results and league tables. Remarkable.
Stuart Humphreys