First Rank Volume 1

First Rank Volume 1

Issue

Comments and Games (pgn) – Link: Game boards User Guide

Vol 1 – No 1 [of 4]

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Issue Date: End-March 1978

Very few of the Club members of those days are still members today, but there are a few names you will recognise: e.g. Ian Hunnable, Terry Whitton. We still see Alan Marshall occasionally, as he comes to Wanstead House (when it’s open!) for Spanish lessons, but he no longer plays chess, which is a great loss to the game.

No grades were shown in the first few issues. I have added them by hand, with errors in the first match table as I was reading from the wrong year’s list!

Download links (left). Games can be downloaded via the link (left) or you can play through them below.

Vol 1 – No 2 [of 4]

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Issue Date: mid-April 1978

In this issue, we find the first visit of the Club to Hastings, on 12 March 1978, for a match over 20 boards. In his match report, Roy Wagstaff notes: “On boards 6 and 7 the local juniors won well”. These are Patrick Donovan – no longer graded, but most recently high 180s/190s – and (now GM) Stuart Conquest (FIDE rating 2510).

First appearance in the mag of Keith Jones and Paul Barclay (both in the Hastings match).

Vol 1 – No 3 [of 4]

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Issue Date: Mid-May 1978

Wood Green in Division 2? This was long before they became a professional team, but they were becoming formidable. A few interesting names in the opposing teams in this issue: in the Ilford match, Gerry Hayes 199 takes top board for Ilford – Gerry subsequently joined Wanstead; in the same match, two Essex stalwarts of yesteryear, Harry Woolverton and Percy Cook always took high boards for the County – Harry in his heyday, would have been graded in the 190s and Percy Cook not far behind. Harry Woolverton took over the Ilford Recorder chess column from Tommy George in the late 1960s and we intend to publish a significant number of Recorder chess columns featuring Wanstead content; look out for them. In the East Ham match, an appearance by Andrew Martin, subsequently to become an IM. And once again Harry Woolverton; he played for Ilford in the London League and East Ham in the Essex League. Like Alan Potter, who played for us in the London League and East Ham in the Essex League. Formerly, Alan played for Romford in EL until that Club folded, when he joined us. Another Club no longer in existence, Harlow, were starting the rise towards their peak.

You will note Roy Wagstaff taking top board, though graded only 158 and playing above Ian Watson, 201. Roy was Club Champion, his 8th title a record at the time, which stood until 2012-13, and availed himself of the Champion’s right to take top board in first team matches, a right which exists in today’s CC Rules, though now less commonly observed, unless the Club Champion is Board 1 on merit.

Vol 1 No 4 [of 4]

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Issue Date: June 1978

Club Campionship number. And this presented me with a problem: to write about my own success – my 2nd Club Championship. I decided to write it in the third person. Now I have to all over again!

The Season’s stats, published as a supplement to this issue, read like a list of all the Essex League Clubs who have been and gone: Chadwell Heath, Waltham Forest, Romford, Old Parkonians, Shell, Harlow, Laindon, May & Baker, Austin, P.E.R.M.E. (Other Clubs you may not recognise: Grays is today’s Thurrock. East Ham still has a team in the London League.)

And this was one of our missed Essex League Championships: P11 Won 11, then we lost to Harlow in our last match and lost the play-off to Upminster. The stats in those days were ranked by percentage, whereas we now rank by points scored. Remember, no computers then; I drew up the stats on an A3 sheet of squared paper and filled in all the result by hand – names down the left, fixtures across the top. Then typed up the stats sheet as you see it here.

You will find more than one reference to a “sealed move” here, because of course, there were digital clocks then, so no increments and the “Quickplay Finish” was not yet in being. Games were played to a finish over multiple sessions, or submitted for adjudication (in the Essex League, so long as 36 moves had been played in the first session).