About
A Brief History of the Club
The Club was formed on Thursday 9th December 1886, when Mr GH Blunden, the Surveyor of Taxes in Macclesfield convened a meeting and subsequently filled the secretary’s position. The club set out in 1887 to challenge the Piccadilly Club and the Manchester YMCA in March. Both matches over nine boards were lost heavily.
Meetings were originally held in the YMCA rooms, but thereafter at the Old Grammar School House, the Drill Hall, the Large Sunday School and the Parsonage Street School were used as premises up to 1901; thereafter for many years rooms were used in the Baptist Sunday School, St George's Street.
The Club helped to set up the Cheshire Chess Association in September 1888. Mr Blunden, who convened that meeting, instigated the Cheshire Cup competition with the assistance of two colleagues from the Macclesfield Club, George Backhouse and Arthur Solly JP. The Club reached the Final on several occasions. In 1891 two matches were drawn with Birkenhead, but Macclesfield were then defeated at the third attempt. The Club’s first success was in 1901. In the final, against Altrincham, the score was 7–1. In 1902, Macclesfield again reached the finals, but lost to Sale with George Beach recording a rare loss. The Club’s second success was in 1915 against Stockport when the score was 6.5–1.5. In their third success in 1920 Macclesfield again defeated Stockport, but by the narrower margin of 5–3. Success was gained when Mr G Mills Palmer resided in the town.
The most influential presence during the early years of the Club was its first chairman, George Beach. He was born in Oldbury, Worcestershire, on November 7th 1853 and died on December 14th 1936; he is buried in Macclesfield Municipal Cemetery.
He was probably responsible for setting up the Cheadle Chess Club, Staffordshire, in 1879, which with thirty-seven members was regarded as one of the strongest small town clubs. He wrote a weekly chess column in the Cheadle Herald from August 1879 to March 1882. He moved to Macclesfield to become the headmaster at Christ Church School. George Beach enjoyed a close friendship with one of the top English tournament players of the day, Joseph Henry Blackburne, known as “the Black Death”. Blackburne described his friend as “certainly the finest amateur player outside London”. The two men played many games over the board. They also played many without sight of it as they travelled by horse-drawn trap or tramped the countryside over Kinder Scout and the neighbouring hills during Blackburne’s frequent visits to stay with Dr Beach’s family. Each of these visits lasted about three months: as long as it took to consume a barrel of home-brewed mead produced by Mrs Beach. Then Blackburne left! This friendship led to the master giving a blindfold exhibition at the Macclesfield Club in 1900.
Macclesfield was a founder member of the Stockport and District Chess League in 1951. The only first division title came in 1985. The Club won the Charnley Cup, the League’s knockout competition, in 1973 and in 1988.
During the sixties and seventies, the Club played in Townley Street School. The organisation at that time has been described as anarchic; there were no meetings, no records and the moneys were collected and the bills settled by Donald Stone. To encourage the youngsters he would offer sixpence (old style) to the first junior who made a check on the night. The facilities consisted of two rooms and games were played on trestle tables that had to be set up and taken down when the caretaker arrived to close the premises. A small group of players always agreed a result at 10pm in order to visit “The Jolly Sailor” or “The Royal Oak”, thereby getting out of the clearing up duties.
At this time the club still competed for the Cheshire Cup, but was almost invariably defeated in an early round. Macclesfield players Alan Sime (1975) and Barry Leigh (1977) won the Intermediate Championship that the County Association organized. In 1977 Tom Norcliffe won the Class 'B' Championship.
Although the Club remained the premier organisation for chess in the town it was not the only place at which Macclesfield inhabitants could play. There was a small club in “The Old Millstone” in Waters Green run by Peter Neal. The conditions were cramped, the lighting poor, the standard of play not the highest, but the company was always friendly. Peter was an enthusiastic and hard-working organiser who also took on the role of match captain for the Stockport League and set up many inter-league competitions during his tenure. He also arranged mini tournaments at the Queens Hotel in Sunderland Street, which included a stew supper. Unlike the ‘patricians’ who adorned the nineteenth century club he was a gardener, often arriving straight from work in torn trousers and with unscrubbed fingernails. The two clubs merged later when the provision of alcohol was common to both.
Other clubs were at places of employment such as ICI and British Aero-Space. The ICI club in particular was very strong and shared the Stockport League first division title from 1977 to 1979, winning it outright in 1980. At least four members from this team have subsequently represented Macclesfield.
In 1982 the first, and to date the only, Macclesfield Chess Congress was arranged with sponsorship from The Cheshire Building Society. The event was held at the High School on Fence Avenue over a weekend in March. HJ (Jim) Plaskett IM, who was soon to become a Grandmaster, won the Open after defeating Mark Hebden in the penultimate round. The Managing Director of the Cheshire Building Society presented the cheque; he was amazed that several of the players were earning a living from competing in such tournaments. For the organisers, Pete Caulkett and myself, the whole thing was monumentally stressful as the entries arrived in trickles and then in streams, so that a week before the opening we were at least guaranteed to break even. Apart from minor hiccups such as two non-smokers forgetting to supply ashtrays the actual event ran quite smoothly owing to input from Richard Furness who had been running congresses for many years for the County and took charge of the Open competition; Alan Sime ran the Major and Pete the Minor. We finished with a profit of about £200 that was donated to the Macclesfield Chess Club.
The Townley Street School venue was left as the caretaker arrived earlier and earlier and made his presence apparent by loudly declaring time. This made the arrangement of matches with other clubs difficult and to cap it all an increase in the cost of hire was demanded, so the upstairs room of the “Nag’s Head” pub was adopted. This was cheap, but reeked of smoke and was often noisy with heavy metal music from the jukebox downstairs, past which one had to go to reach not one of the best urinals. Nevertheless, the room was spacious and served the club well for many years. A disadvantage was the loss of many younger players, whose parents would not countenance their attending such a low tavern.
Our most eccentric and intellectually brilliant member may have been the biochemist Jeff Thorp, who had carried out innovative research to develop a new heart drug for ICI. He opted for the direct route to heaven. In 1992 his ashes were blasted into the sky from Kerridge Hill in 28 rockets after he had carefully researched rocket propulsion and the specific gravity of human ashes to calculate the optimum trajectory. Planes from Manchester Airport were diverted from the airspace as silver, red and green stars exploded.
The most shocking incident with which the club was indirectly connected was when a long established member perpetrated a heinous crime in the town and then committed suicide. He was also a member of the stamp-collecting club and that has to be all that will be said on the matter.
The Club has also been a member of the North Staffordshire and District Chess League for many years. The only first division title in this League came in 1996 when the Club shared the title with Cheddleton.
Since 1976, 302 people have visited or joined the club, with 60 coming from outside Macclesfield town, 71 being under 16 and 20 ladies. Recently the club gained international renown when it was featured on the BBC World Service in a programme entitled “The Endgame” in which the presenter, Simon Terrington, examined the appeal of chess throughout the world. Simon had been a member of the club when he was ten years old.
Tony Soames
A more extended version of this history is being prepared and will be made available as a pdf file if and when… My thanks to David Risley, Richard Beach, Alan Smith, Roy Gray and Alan Sime for contributions, written and oral. All the mistakes are mine and I would greatly appreciate corrections.