Alan Perkins (1949-2025)

[John Saunders]

I've just received the sad news that Alan H Perkins has died.

Born in Leeds on 19 March 1949, he soon made his mark winning the 1965 British Under-16 Championship (jointly with Ivor Friedlander). He finished 3rd behind Brian Denman and Alan Ludgate in the 1966 British Under-21 Championship but a little further down the field in the 1967 British Under-21. In 1968 he made his debut in the British Championship proper, scoring 6½/11 to finish in a tie for 7th place. He made the same score in the 1969 British Championship, this time tying for 8th place.

In 1970 he didn't play in the British Championship because it clashed with the World Student Olympiad in Haifa, where he was board four behind Mike Basman, Daniel Wright and Simon, and ahead of Peter Markland and John Carleton. With most Iron Curtain countries not participating, the England team took the silver medals just behind the USA.

He played in the 1971 British Championship, once again scoring 6½/11, with two wins and nine draws. In 1972 he scored 5½, with one win, one loss and nine draws. The same year he was once again a member of the England team that took part in the Students Olympiad. Though the team did much worse in a significantly strong event, his own individual performance was much better than it had been in Haifa, scoring 5/9 in the preliminary group and 3½/7 in the Final A section.

He played in three more British Championships: in 1973 he scored 4½, in 1974 his score was up to 6 and finally in 1975 he stabilised at 6.

I get the impression that chess took a back seat thereafter, though he played a few tournaments between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s. The last event for which I could find game scores was the 1994 Lloyds Bank Masters where he scored 6/10.

I've gathered together around 200 of his games and made them available as a PGN file here - https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/perkinsah.pgn

I should add that I didn't know Alan personally, so hopefully those forum members who did can add their memories of him.

[aharley]

This is to share the sad news that Alan Perkins (1949-2025) has died.

Alan, originally from Yorkshire, was one of England's strongest juniors in the 1960's, jointly winning the 1965 British Under-16 Championship. He played for England in the Student Olympiads of 1970 and 1972, and also as an individual player in a strong Under-26 tournament in Germany in 1968.

Alan was a captain's dream, a regular playing every Ealing A team match (on one of the top few boards) in the Thames Valley and Middlesex leagues over the last 3 years, after a break for the pandemic, and ended last season on a high with a number of wins against strong opposition, his rating rising back up to 2172, very impressive at the age of 76.

John Quinn, who had known him for over 50 years including working together at British Airways, and I, who just sat next to him for the last 3 years, hope to write a chess obituary for the Ealing Chess Club website and would appreciate any memories of Alan that you can share.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

That is sad news. I did not know Alan personally, but I did spectate on a number of the games he played for Ealing Chess Club in the Thames Valley League. He was always on a much higher board than I would have been playing on (so I never got to play him as far as I know). He would often be playing the late Gavin Wall on board 1 in the matches against Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club.

In recent years Alan was clearly still playing, as can be seen in this photo and report on a game he played against Kingston in December 2024 (at Ealing's home venue of Actonians Sports Club):

https://kingstonchess.com/ashley-stewar ... ns-ealing/

Alan is described there as a "distinguished veteran". I couldn't immediately find any other photos of him. Maybe others have other photos?

His ECF rating card is here (I am not sure at what point he became a regular in the evening chess leagues in London, but he has certainly been playing in those leagues for as long as I can remember):

https://rating.englishchess.org.uk/play ... de=116965J

Condolences to his friends and family.

EDIT: Adding (with permission) the photo from Kingston Chess Club website.

AlanPerkins_2024.jpg (109.47 KiB) Viewed 3070 times

[James Pratt]

Harding's excellent 'Counter Gambits' p98 has the entertaining Penrose-v-Perkins, Brighton '72. Now that you will enjoy ..
James

[Roger de Coverly]

I should add that I didn't know Alan personally, so hopefully those forum members who did can add their memories of him.

He was at London University alongside the late Simon Webb in the late 1960s and early 1970s and regularly played against the top Cambridge University players in London University v Cambridge University matches and at BUCA.

I think one of my old scorebooks notes that a game was finished as "adjudication by AH Perkins", so he was pressed into service at Congresses as an instant adjudicator.

My game archive records that I drew with him at the Suffolk Open in 1991, so he continued to play in tournaments from time to time.

[John Townsend]

The name is familiar, but I can't put a face to it. In my score-books, I found just one (rapid) game:

White: A.H. Perkins
Black: J. Townsend
Reading Rapid Chess Tournament, 27 April 1991
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 e5 7.d5 c6 8.Qd2 cxd5 9.cxd5 Nh5 10.O-O-O f5 11.Bd3 Na6 12.Nge2 Nb4 13.Bb1 Bd7 14.a3 Na6 15.Bc2 Rc8 16.Kb1 b5 17.Na2 Nc5 18.Nec3 a5 19.Rc1 b4 20.axb4 axb4 21.Nxb4 Qa5 22.Nba2 Ra8 23.Rce1 Rfb8 24.Kc1 Nf4 25.Bxc5 dxc5 26.g3 Bh6 27.Kd1 Rxb2 28.gxf4 Bxf4 29.Qd3 Rxa2 30.Nxa2 Bb5 31.Qc3 Qxa2 32.d6 Qa1+ 33.Qxa1 Rxa1+ 34.Bb1 Bd3 0-1
I remember my wife being pleased with the outcome of this tournament, as I took home a tin of biscuits for one of the prizes - better than the usual nothing! Were the biscuits something to do with Huntley & Palmer?

Black's last move was 34...Bd3 (not ...Bd6). JT

[John Upham]

https://kingstonchess.com/ashley-stewar ... ns-ealing/

could help with Identification.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Was thinking about this and (for me at least) Alan was instantly recognisable. Not sure why, as his looks were not particularly distinctive. I think it must have been the sheer number of times I saw him play for Ealing. I know John said that chess (high level tournaments, maybe) took a back seat after the 1970s. Is there a way to work out how many games Alan played both as shown on the ECF rating system and in the older grading lists? I think numbers of games is harder to track the further back you go? Ealing Chess Club may be able to estimate some numbers.

[Roger de Coverly]

Is there a way to work out how many games Alan played both as shown on the ECF rating system and in the older grading lists?

When you consult an old printed grading list, you will see that there's a code alongside each published grade ahowing how many games were included. For example A meant at least 30 games in the period covered by the grading list.

Players of the 180s and higher were often listed in the BCF yearbook.

[Richard Bates]

Sad news. Always a pleasure to play against.

I think he might have been the first ever player i played against in a weekend Open, in 1992. Having been gifted a grade of 159 i won a couple of majors (U160) with 6/6 and then for some reason decided i was bored with winning money. I then defeated Alan in the first round at (I think) Upminster (EDIT: actually that doesn't quite fit). It obviously stuck because he reminded me when he started playing evening league chess again sometime in the 2010s and i played him (I think) at Ealing's then venue at the Harvester and he recalled the previous time when i was let's say, somewhat smaller...

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The ECF rating history indicates he started playing again in the 2008-9 season, so it looks like I was wrong remembering him playing before that point. He did play every year after that (pandemic excepted).

You played him three times in the Middlesex League at Standardplay, Richard, in 2009, 2011, and 2014. You won the first two, and the third game was a draw. It is interesting looking at the list of who he played.

[Jonathan Rogers]

That's very sad, he seemed to be a very pleasant fellow. I think that he finished first equal at the Charlton Open in 1991, perhaps with Chris Ward. He certainly beat me in that event and I think that he might have beaten Phil Rossiter too. Neither of us had heard of him before, young as we were, but Phil perceptively said to me that he "had a feeling that Mr Perkins was once a very strong player". (Was?!)

My condolences to his family.

[Craig Pritchett]

Very sad news to me too. Alan was indeed a very strong junior and a threat to anyone, certainly through the early to mid 1970s before embarking on conventional full time professional employment (I recall his joining BA). He was indeed also an extremely friendly and approachable person. I played quite a number of games against him at British Championships and the 'bigger' Swiss Opens through the 1970s. I do recall he loved Yorkshire cricket and was a great fan of Geoff Boycott, whose robust, no-nonsense batting style and record, he once defended, I believe, in a letter to 'Chess'. Brings back so many fond memories of that era. Condolences to family and friends.

[Kevin Thurlow]

He also played for Post Office in the Civil Service League and probably elsewhere. I only played him once (in a Rapidplay in 1996), nice man, strong player and quite right about Yorkshire cricket.

[John Saunders]

I've added five further scores to the collection of Alan Perkins' games here. Two are from 1991 and the other three from 2009, 2010 and 2024. The running total is now 217, four of which are part-games and 22 merely stubs (i.e. header info but no moves).

https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/perkinsah.pgn

Many thanks to those who have contributed scores.