Searching for the North East’s next champions

(Newcastle Chronicle, 19 July 2024)

Great sporting talents, such as those at Euro 2024, do not appear overnight – they are many years in the making. Yet football clubs such as Newcastle tend to buy in the best talent from around the world, rather than undertake the hard work of developing homegrown talent, which takes far longer. If this is true with football, it’s doubly true with chess, where top players’ careers are measured in decades.

For many years now in North East chess – like English chess as a whole – not enough top players have come through. The top boards in the region’s tournaments and leagues lack young players. It’s a problem that local organisers are trying to fix by organising junior chess sections in their clubs (at Gosforth, Forest Hall and Newcastle). But it’s going to take time, and a lot of hard work, to find and develop the new champions.

England’s heyday in world chess was in the 1980s and 90s, when an explosion of interest in the game followed Bobby Fischer’s victory over Boris Spassky in 1972. England went toe to toe with the Soviet Union, and produced a world championship challenger: Nigel Short, from Bolton in Lancashire.

North East congresses sprang up in Alnwick, Tyne & Wear, Seaham, Durham, Middlesbrough and Redcar organised by enthusiastic volunteers. Supportive local councils in those days could offer affordable venues in schools, town halls and community centres.

The engine rooms for chess development were primary and secondary schools, where teachers would give up their time to run after-school and lunchtime chess clubs, and thriving out-of-school junior chess clubs were run by dedicated volunteers. Nowadays, hard-pressed teachers often don’t have the time and energy.

English chess has now been far outstripped by new powerhouses from Eastern Europe, China and India. Eighteen-year-old Dommaraju Gukesh, from Chennai, is the new world championship challenger. Considerable state funding has been put into developing chess talent in India and many other countries.

Finally, English chess may be turning the corner, however, since the UK government’s decision last year to provide close to £1 million for chess development, with money for schools’ clubs and to coach and develop future champions. The plan to develop grassroots chess is being coordinated by the English Chess Federation and supported by Northumberland and Durham Chess Associations. For more information about getting chess going in your area, contact: mickriding@hotmail.co.uk.

The next big regional event is the Northumbria Masters, which takes place from August 22-26 at The Dolphin Centre, Darlington. There are tournaments for everyone from newcomers to budding grandmasters, and entries are being taken online at: https://northumbriamasters.com.

PUZZLES

Puzzle A: Magnus Carlsen (aged 14). White to play.

Puzzle B: Bobby Fischer (aged 16). White to play.

Puzzle C: Judit Polgar (aged 12). Black to play.

Puzzle D: Dommaraju Gukesh (aged 15). White to play.

ANSWERS:

A: 1 Rf7+ Kxe6 (1…Kd8 2 Qxd6+) 2 Qc4 checkmate.
B: 1 Bd7! 1-0. If 1…Qxd7 2 Rxg6+! hxg6 3 Qxd7.
C: 1…Qa4+! 0-1. If 2 Rxa4 Rxa4+ 3 Kb1 Rh1+.
D: 1 Re7! 1-0. If 1…Qxb2 2 Rh7 checkmate.