The season is drawing to a close and the SCCA Divisional winners are falling into place. Redhill have won the Surrey Trophy and, following Wimbledon’s win last year, confirms the break in the domination of Guildford and CCF. To see the full table, go to the CCF website. Do not waste your time going to the SCCA website as, incredibly, the last result to be posted was a match played last October . The new regime who now run the SCCA have not exactly covered themselves with glory in this area at least. Graeme Buckley, the new Tournaments Secretary, although inexperienced, has done a good job but one look at the CCF results pages shows you what Surrey lost when they foolishly did not elect the very efficient Scott Freeman to this post.
Depending on which teams elect to come up to the Surrey Trophy from the Beaumont, our First team may be relegated. This is mainly due our inability to field our strongest teams in away matches. At home we did well, beating Wimbledon and Guildford 2 and just getting pipped by Streatham and CCF. The second team has won the Ellam Trophy to earn promotion if we want it, and so may find itself playing the first team next year in the Beaumont. The last Ellam match was at Kingston who had returned to the Friends Meeting House, their home of recent years.
Going there made me reflect on the changing face of League Chess. When I first started playing for Crystal Palace in the Surrey and Croydon Leagues there were far more clubs and teams than today. Kingston played in a working men’s club and ran four teams, Sutton ran five teams, Mitcham dominated the League with two very powerful teams and Croydon Chess Club ran three teams. None of these clubs now exist. In the Croydon League there were half a dozen teams from Sutton Nalgo to Cambridge Tutors and commercial companies that have all disappeared. Crystal Palace started with just six players in the 1960s expanded at one time to over forty members and has now settled down to a membership of between twenty to thirty. But the requirement to work longer hours now dominates chess as it does other past-times. The reason for our failure to put out strong teams in away matches is not because our good players do not want to play. It is because of the difficulty they find in getting to the wilds of Surrey by the match start time of 7.30. As one member put it to me: “I have a nine to five contract, but, if I want to keep my job, I am expected to get into work by 7.30 and cannot be the one person in the office who closes down his computer at 5.30 and says I’m going home.” We have a number of teachers, who have to work incredibly hard and other professions that also make heavy demands. Who wants or is even able to go to Ashtead or Guildford and play a tough game after a heavy week working long hours? League Chess has changed and the SCCA needs to recognise this,
So what’s the solution. I have looked at the Kent Leagues. These are divided into regions so that players do not have to travel to far too often. Matches are on a home-and -away basis and the size of teams and number of teams in a division is smaller. But it is difficult to see how Surrey could be divided up and I doubt it would be popular among the most powerful clubs. It is true the Minor Trophy is run on a regional North- South basis. Still it could be the answer.
David Hodgson