English Chess Forum

Reading an old copy of the Civil Service Chess Bulletin, I found that In 1969, Civil Service defeated a team of MPs 6-2, and during the coffee break, PS Milner-Barry asked if the MPs could grant BCF financial support, as it did to other social activities.

"In reply, Mr Julius Silverman, MP, thanked us for our hospitality and said that Milner-Barry in a sense was pushing on an open door in that this had already been tried by Members but that the relevant Civil Servants, when approached, had ruled that, under an 1834 Act, money could be granted only for PHYSICAL recreation. An attempt had been made to justify the claim in respect of chess by drawing attention to the labour involved in moving chess pieces over a board; the reply had been received that, if this argument were to be valid, any person turning over the pages of a book would fall into the same category.”

Kevin Thurlow wrote:under an 1834 Act, money could be granted only for PHYSICAL recreation.

In 1973, post Fischer, with the boom in interest in Chess, funds were put through the education budget.

And very quickly taken out of the education budget. Maggie Thatcher was known as the 'milk snatcher' in her education secretary days.

As for very recent announcement of National Funding Formula for Schools for 2018-19 and 2019-20 in the areas where average per pupil funding is high secondary schools may be losing £750 per pupil and primaries about £500. Trying to get to an average across the country there is little recognition of an appropriate area cost adjustment for inner London. Also losing out on £40k or more in school lump sums.

Not sure why anyone thinks of government funding for chess when you think of the graduate loan mountains at extortionate rates of interest.

In terms of the physical activity of chess I once ran a training run of 14 miles and then played a County Chess match. In that run I kept my heart rate at a nice level. Forgot to turn off my monitor. Towards the end of my chess match when I got a bit excited my heart rate jumped alarmingly.

Nick Grey wrote:And very quickly taken out of the education budget. Maggie Thatcher was known as the 'milk snatcher' in her education secretary days.

Total rubbish, you have not bothered to check your facts at all. BCF government funding via the education budget continued for many years before being switched to culture and its total duration was around 40 years. The Thatcher government was sympathetic to chess and Mrs T herself performed the opening ceremony at the K v K 1986 world title match.

Mrs Thatcher pictured at the KvK match in 1986

I believe she also appeared at some point for the Speelman v Timman semi-final (maybe the opening ceremony again?) and showed her knowledge by referring to our hero as the "Speelwolf"! (A fashionable label for a while, following an article by Tisdall on Hastings 1987).

(Bit hard to imagine Theresa May referring to Adams as "Tricky Mickey", if he had made the candidates again. "Call me Dave" Cameron might have pulled it off, though).

Jonathan Rogers wrote:(Bit hard to imagine Theresa May referring to Adams as "Tricky Mickey", if he had made the candidates again.

Maybe not. Did you hear her on Test Match Special? She was very personable, once the obligatory political puff was out of the way.

As much as I'm a child of the Thatcher generation whatever small support in funding chess was at the expense of cutting milk budgets and also later on in cuts of higher education spending and student grants.

Currently with the mess that we have children with debts of £50k in toxic loans when they leave university we should not be surprised that they end up back at home and cannot get on the housing ladder.

Theresa has difficult job with the economy and Brexit at the moment so I cannot see any prospect on future government funding for chess.

A bad day today but could have been worse if I had been on the district line train with the bomb explosion at Parsons Green - thank god I was a bit tired from chess administration work yesterday.