North East clubs lead grassroots chess revival

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(Chronicle Chess 29th December 2023)

It’s been a good year for grassroots chess in the North East – a trend that looks set to continue in 2024.

The Northumbria League, which includes clubs from as far afield as Alnwick and Corbridge in Northumberland to South Shields, Gateshead and Leam Lane, is growing again, with a total of 38 teams of four players each competing in six divisions in the 2023-24 season.

This means the league has now fully recovered from Covid, which saw over-the-board chess cancelled for the 2020-21 season and take a long time to revive.

While the numbers of players are roughly the same as pre-pandemic levels, the makeup of clubs and teams are now different demographically. Many more young players, including more juniors and younger adults, are now playing club and league chess – replacing older players who have effectively retired from the scene. And these new players are not like new recruits to chess from decades ago: many newcomers are experienced at online chess, and have cut their teeth on YouTube instructional videos and streaming rather than traditional chess books.

The boom in online chess and the popularity of the TV series ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ have undoubtedly played a big part in bringing new people into the game, and this is filtering through into bigger attendances at some North East clubs. Gosforth is leading the way here, with nine league teams and more than 50 players meeting weekly at Gosforth Empire Club on Salters Road. Other clubs have also followed suit, with Alnwick, South Shields, Tynemouth and Newcastle University adding new league teams.

There is also a brand new city centre club, which formed in September 2023, entering two teams in the Northumbria League. Newcastle meets at the Tyneside Irish Centre, Gallowgate, on Monday evenings, 6:30pm-9:15pm, and also runs a Junior Club at Jesmond Library on Sundays from
2:30pm-4:30pm and a drop-in club for social chess on Saturdays, 11am-1pm, at Newcastle City Library.
The core of the new club is the 2022-23 Division 1-winning Forest Hall A team, whose members are geographically spread around the North East and therefore find travelling into Newcastle city centre easier. The new Newcastle club reties the knot of history, as previous incarnations of Newcastle Chess Club go back as far as 1842, according to newspaper archives.
Newcastle’s teams are leading Divisions 1 and 6 at the New Year mark, and could well end up winning both divisions by the end of March.
For more info about Newcastle’s weekly activities, tournaments and other events in 2024, go to: https://newcastlechessclub.com, email club secretary Tim Wall on timpeterwall@gmail or text 0750 372 2366.

Today’s puzzles are taken from this week’s FIDE World Rapidplay Championships in Samarkand, Uzbekistan:

Puzzle A: Sklokin-Murzin (Black to play)

Puzzle B: Petrov-Duda (Black to play)

Puzzle C: Radjabov-Ilyushenok (Black to play)

Puzzle D: Cheparinov-Rapport (White to play)

Answers:
A: 1…Bxd4+ 2 Qxd4 Qxc3! 0-1. If 3 Qxc3 Nxe2+ 4 Kf2 Nxc3.
B: 1…Qxh4+! 2 Kg1 (or 2 gxh4 Rxg2+ 3 Kh3 Nf2+) Rxg3 0-1.
C: 1…Bxa3! 2 bxa3 b4! 3 Bc5 Rc8 4 Bf1 Rxc5! 0-1.
D: 1 Re8! Rxe8 (if 1…Nxe8 2 f8(Q)+) 2 Qxf6+! 1-0. If 2…Rxf6
or 2…Kxf6, 3 fxe8 (N)+! forks king and queen.