Barbican Youth

[Gavin Strachan]

I was just having a browse of the 4NCL and noticed in the Barbican Youth John Moore. Crickey John you should give up chess as it ages you really badly

[John Moore]

Ah Gavin - not everyone who has played for Barbican Youth is aged 12 and graded over 200 ECF.

Others who have appeared with a degree of regularity include John Hodgson, David Coleman and also, up until last year, Julian Farrand (who is even older than me!). The idea of the Barbican Youth team (as has frequently been espoused by my learned leader, Mr Rogers) is to give talented juniors every opportunity to play 4NCL against strong opposition but that does not mean that we can turn out eight of them for every weekend, particularly when some have now graduated to play in our second team in Division 1.

I do seem to recall one match where I led a team where the other seven players were under 21 - and I was somewhat older!

Anyway, thank you for your kind words

[John Moore]

Actually Gavin, this weekend we introduced Ivor Smith to the youth team. Jon Manley also reappeared on the Sunday. However the principle remains the same - juniors to the fore, just they are not always available.

[Scott Freeman]

Totally unrelated, but this all reminds me of a huge row that developed in the SCCU when a team known as Middlesex Girls (run by Bruce Birchall outside of the remit of the Middlesex County Chess Association) had a team playing in the Under 14/Under 90 competition with a number of boys in it. Mind you, the difference here is that a "senior" player playing in a youth team can only be good for their claims of being young at heart, whereas I am not quite sure how Bruce managed to persuade so many boys to play in a team called Middlesex Girls......!

[IM Jack Rudd]

Well, if my film collection is any guide, I'd fit right in to a team called Middlesex Girls.

[Jonathan Rogers]

Barbican (the London Club, now extant and quite distinct from the 4NCL Club) once played Middlesex Girls (in 1995/6) in the National Club Rapidplay. I was captain for Barbican and bought biscuits and orange juice for the occasion!

As John says, we missed some of our genuinely youthful players last weekend, e.g Samuel Franklin whose excellent result at Guernsey has been noted elsewhere on this forum.

[Alex Holowczak]

The team names aren't really important.

Wales Old Boys had a player last year who didn't qualify on any of the three bases (young Chinese lady).

[John Saunders]

Barbican (the London Club, now extant ...

Do you mean "extant" or "extinct"? I thought it was the latter.

[Richard Bates]

Barbican (the London Club, now extant ...

Do you mean "extant" or "extinct"? I thought it was the latter.

I did for a brief moment wonder if i had newly learnt that "extinct" was merely short for "extant and distinct", but I hadn't

Technically i suppose they do live on through the board number markers at Cavendish...

[Jonathan Rogers]

I meant "extinct"!

[Jonathan Rogers]

Alex said "The team names aren't really important.

Wales Old Boys had a player last year who didn't qualify on any of the three bases (young Chinese lady)."


You might argue that. And Ben has never actually fielded a shark in any of his teams, though he did bring an inflatable one to the last weekend.