English Chess Forum

Last week the final cigarettes were manufactured in the UK when the Imperial Tobacco company closed its Nottingham Horizon factory. The factory which at one time turned out 50 billion cigarettes a year closed on 18th May making 500 employees redundant. Formally John Player and Sons, the firm at one time had a thriving Sports and Social Club and it's chess club was the strongest in Nottinghamshire winning the local county league in 1968.

The Chess Club expired long before the closure of the factory and follows many other works-based clubs. In Nottinghamshire cycle manufacturing has ceased along with the Raleigh Chess Club. Coal mining is no more as are the Sherwood Colliery, Bevercotes Colliery and Welbeck Colliery Chess Clubs, Boots are still in the city albeit as part of a group based in Switzerland but there is no chess club. The work based chess club is now a memory.

This week Courtaulds in Derbyshire called in the receiver with 320 more employees made redundant. Again the club of that name, based at the old British Celanese factory at Spondon, ceased to exist when those works closed down. In that case the club still exists as "Spondon".

Memories of work based clubs would be welcome in this thread.

Neil

I recall there was another thread on this subject a while back.

Jack - might it be worth combining the two threads?

Mike Truran wrote:I recall there was another thread on this subject a while back. Jack - might it be worth combining the two threads?

Mike: could this be the one you mean? I recall there's two or three other threads that also have some posts on the subject, which I'll try to track down as well.

Yes, that was exactly the one I had in mind. Thanks for finding it!

I did think about trying to get some sort of chess club, or at least an annual tournament started in the NHS. But after starting a “feeler” thread on the NHS forum the responses of “Is that like draughts?” and “Can we do it on Xbox live?” dampened my ardour somewhat! Shame really, massive canteen at work, a congress could be held in it.

There is a new work based chess club - South Croydon Bus Garage who formed a few years ago and play in the Croydon League. I think, though, that they are yet to win a match.

Back in the mid-70s maybe a majority of teams in the Lancaster chess league were works/social club based, when I started playing in 1981 that was down to a handful - by the mid 80s there were none.

From what I have learned from others, that was a pattern repeated (and on a not dissimilar timescale) elsewhere.

Post Fisher boom period I suppose - once the excitement had died down many of the casual majority of players will have worked out they were never going to be that great and packed in, the clubs died off.

To some extent, though as the original thread mentioned works chess clubs were a mainstay of the British chess scene in the rather less exalted 50s and 60s as well. I personally think their decline was bound up with wider societal changes (and whilst some of those who played in them were sadly lost to competitive chess when they folded, quite a few did actually join the "dedicated" chess clubs)

I doubt it's particularly a chess thing. One could probably identify the same trends in any number of sporting/game activities. Probably any number of contributing factors - the decline of "jobs for life"/people spending most of their life working in the same place, changed employer attitudes towards having a wider social responsibility towards their employees, the fact that employees are far less likely to live in the same area that they work, all contributing to a greater separation between work and social life that once would have been inextricably linked.

I think Richard is right.

Redhill Chess Club did run a local competition for work-based teams a few years ago and didn't get a huge entry, maybe three or four teams of four. Those who played were keen. I think Thurston Helicopters (from nearby Redhill Aerodrome at that stage) and Toyota played in the final. One of our stronger players worked at Toyota, but omitted himself from the team to give others a chance. I think Thurston flew off with the trophy. I can't remember if we tried to run another one, (if so, there was less interest) but the idea was worth a try.