News

We have a new venue - again! Details and maps are on the Venue page.

Congratulations to Phil for finding it.

Find The Move

Can you find the move? There are 3 levels of difficulty, L1 being the easiest. Move the pieces by holding down the left mouse button and dragging.

 

 

Players

ECF Grading 2015/2016

Name	July 2015	Jan 2016
Bentham, Sam	118	121
Buckley, David I	80	82
Button, John E	122	117
Cooper, David M	173	175
Cooper, Lawrence	220	218
Crombleholme, Alan K	180	173
Fenby, John A	129	128
Fenn, Andrew	115	116
Grinsell, Lee A	186	185
James, Mel	44	45
Jones, Simon A	103	106
Laight, Derek	166	165
Lissamore, Adrian R	115	109
Molineux, David	132	127
Parry, Richard CT	156	154
Pinfold, OWB (Bill)	109	113
Podlesak, Mark	141	138
Scott, Phil	58	55
Staley, Phil F	136	133
Staniforth, John	160	154
Sygnowski, Tomasz	205	210
Whitehead, Jeremy	104	105

 

 

A Brief Early History of Bushbury Chess Club

The first meeting took place on Friday, March 29th 1963 in the Art room at Northicote Bi-Lateral School which is now the N.E. Wolverhampton Academy. About twenty 11 year olds were present and we used the chess sets from Bushbury County School (now known as Northwood Park). At around 10.00pm I took the sets back to my bed-sitting room on the bus ( no car in those days) and returned them to school on Monday morning. This became standard practice and on one occasion I remember dropping the sets and grovelling on my hands and knees in the park to retrieve them in the rain.

We had tournaments and prizes and soon grew to over thirty. The club night was changed to Wednesday so that we could use the Community Centre which in the early days was the old school near the church (now used as a play-group) before moving to the new Community Centre in 1976 with the help of Jack Ryman, the warden, where we have been ever since.

I was determined to enter the Wolverhampton Chess League where we soon made an impact playing as Bushbury Knights and Bishops and within two years we had four teams. We had three very good eleven year olds - Jimmy Fellows, Tomothy Eagleton and Graham halford and the latter won the Chess title of Staffordshire in 1964. (Amazingly these players must now be around sixty years of age). I also managed to recruit some older youngsters and one or two adults as well. Alan Boxley, a good player who taught at Elston Hall, was a big help and I also persuaded Geoff Hicks, another chess enthusiast to join. I'd met Geoff by chance and soon learned that his speciality was chess problems and he was so good that several of them had been published in the Sunday Times, no mean feat at any time!

The club soon began to create an impression to the extent that the two local clubs of Wolverhampton and Wolverhampton Kipping beagn to feel the heat and we even picked up one or two players from these clubs. One such arrival was a Latvian gentleman named Leo Armstrong. Leo became areal missionary for us, producing a magazine and helping the club gather momentum. He also invited Raymond Keene, the newly appointed Chess correspondent of the 'The Times' and somehow persuaded him to spend a week-end with us. Raymond agreed to become our President and he was excellent. He gave his time so generously, tutored the young players, and played them all in a simultaneous display which was marvellous to behold.

Gradually we attracted fine players of the calibre of Philip Porter, Ray Tudor and Clive Rix, but it was for our clever youngsters that we became especially noticed. One thinks of John Peters, and the Jones brothers, Nigel. Patrick and Ashley (also known as Chris). With these lads in the 'A' team we had reached Division One by the early seventies but the heyday for winning trophies was certainly in the eighties and early nineties. We became Champions of the Birmingham League and the Wolverhampton League on eight occasions and during that period I think we the strongest tean in the land outside London. At one time we seven players who played for England in their age-group and several did well academically, moving on to Oxbridge and later Ph.D's.

Finally we should never forget that a lot of this success would not have possible without those unsung heroes who were content to remain in the background. That army of parents and friends of the Club who were so generous with their time and who helped with transport and funding, in times of desperate financial shortages.

 

Phil Staley