42 Years Ago

[Kevin Thurlow]

From the Surrey Chess News number 3, 16 January 1968, Editorial by R Lancaster.

"It is generally acknowledged that the bane of British Chess at present is inadequate finance. Shoestring budgets result in chess activities frequently being run subject to economies of a nature not encountered in similar spheres."

He then reveals that expenditure was £2431, of which £901 was administrative expenses, and more alarmingly in my view, £476 "miscellaneous" expenses. Surely some of that could have been itemised? The loss was £199, mainly it appears due to losses on events it ran. He then bemoans the fact that there were 25 000 graded players but only 9000 members!

"The big drawback is apathy and/or lack of confidence in the BCF on the part of chess-players up and down the country who see no tangible return for the small amounts already being paid."

"The division between players and organisers should not exist."

[Roger de Coverly]

He then bemoans the fact that there were 25 000 graded players but only 9000 members!

Were there really that many? Graded would mean included in the grading system rather than published since the printed lists weren't particularly fat.

That said though most schools with a sixth form had one or two usually six board teams and most universities had strong teams as well. Just two years later in 1969, the BUCA event had 29 8 board teams. That's almost the size of today's
4NCL top two divisions using players from universities alone.

Post Fischer in 1972-3, Stewart Reuben could run a weekender in London and get more than a thousand entries.

[Mike Truran]

Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme chose...... (sorry, don't know how to do the cedillas/accents/circumflexes - Carl??)

[David Robertson]

¿What's the problem, Mîké Trürán¿

[Mike Truran]

Ha ha ha (you show-off).

No doubt though any tyro can do umlauts and uppy downy question marks.

No cedillas or circumflexes in your post though............

Go on, impress me.

[Ian Thompson]

Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme chose...... (sorry, don't know how to do the cedillas/accents/circumflexes - Carl??)

Plus ça change, plus ça reste la même chose......

Easy - put it in Word, tell it the language is French and tell it to spell check it.

[Mike Truran]

Good man! Many thanks.

[David Robertson]

I memorised all the keypad combinations in infancy. But some people prefer to use this:

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/inte ... dealt.html

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I memorised all the keypad combinations in infancy. But some people prefer to use this:

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/inte ... dealt.html"

I never thought my post would be useful, but as it's led to the above....

[Simon Brown]

Never mind the keypad combinations, let's get the French right. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. I knew that degree would come in useful one day.

[Joey Stewart]

What does it all mean though?

[Alex Holowczak]

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

GCSE French was good enough for that.

[Mike Truran]

Simon

Indeed. My own French degree was clearly several years earlier than yours such that the interval of time has impaired my memory more than it has yours.

But I have made the point about the effect of advancing years on my mental faculties before. Clearly this is but another example of it.

Must close now - time for my bathchair and cup of cocoa.

[Simon Brown]

Mike, mine was in 1984. My excuse tends to be that I have been gradually replacing the old knowledge with things I need now, but it doesn't help when I forget to pick up a pint of milk on the way home from work......

However, back to the main point. £2,400 in 1968 is worth about £32k now, add the £60k grant (which I presume wasn't received then, though I stand to be corrected) makes £92k. I seem to recall somewhere else on this forum that the ECF total income was about £110k. If all that is right, the last 42 years have given us a total increase of 20% in revenue, or about 0.6% per annum compounded, attributable to increased player numbers and price increases above inflation.

Oh yes. 1968 was before 1972.....

[Mike Truran]

......and mine in 1978 (with German). QED - six years difference has indeed had the deleterious effect I claimed.

Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? (Alex, please feel free to leap into action - no googling permitted).

Apologies for the missing accent - I still can't get the hang of Dave's blessed cribsheet (and have given up trying after accidently deleting my post twice).