Brian Eley

[Jonathan Bryant]

Is this another Jimmy Savile type case?

Not really.

Maybe I didn't look in the right places, or don't move in the right circles, but I wasn't aware of any allegations against Savile until after his death.

You may not have been aware of them, but they most certainly existed.

There were loads. And it is well documented that Savile responded to newspapers raising issues with him by 'threatening' the loss of charitable donations to Stoke Mandeville/and the like if he no longer was involved in fundraising.

I first heard about Savile between 1999 and 2002. I know it was those years specifically because I remember who told me and she was a work colleague at the time. She said that he had a van and was well known at her school for having girls who had written to him stay over and spend the night - and further that she personally knew several girls who had done so.

That was a decade before he died. And you could be sure that if it had reached me it was well known by people who matter (or should have mattered) long before then.


Jerry Sadowitz on Jimmy Savile from the late 80s can be heard here:-

https://hmsfriday.com/2012/10/12/jerry- ... k-in-1988/

(WARNING: the language used is robust - which will surprise you not one jot if you've ever heard of Jerry Sadowitz before)



Baddiel & Skinner (and many others) in the 30 years before Savile's death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeB9ZxffQAE

[Nick Ivell]

To answer Reg's question: there was no good reason. He had simply taken a dislike against the controller. No idea why. He simply wanted to cause trouble.

On a separate subject. I never leant anything about CHESS from Eley. You would have thought that a former British champion (albeit a weak one) would have been full of ideas. Not a bit of it. He only ever suggested somewhat cranky ideas like drinking lots of coffee during a game.

I played scores of blitz games against Eley, and held my own easily. He was not as strong as I would have expected a former champion to be.

I am not suggesting he was a patzer. Clearly, he could be a dangerous attacking player. But I like to think that if I was managing a group of juniors, I would have some positional ideas to suggest.

[Nick Burrows]

There were loads. And it is well documented that Savile responded to newspapers raising issues with him by 'threatening' the loss of charitable donations to Stoke Mandeville/and the like if he no longer was involved in fundraising.

The Louis Theroux documentary was in 2000. I watched it at the time and was creeped out by him. I do not remember direct questions about paedophilia, but apparently he did.

https://www.nme.com/news/tv/louis-thero ... sm-3089946

[Matt Mackenzie]

It is widely agreed that his winning the British title in 1972 was a bit of a fluke.

But still, some players a lot stronger than Eley haven't been very good teachers. Its not a gift given to everybody.

[Nick Ivell]

Agreed, not everyone can teach.

I just expected to be given more concrete advice than to drink coffee during games.

[Jonathan Bryant]

... just because he is dead should not mean the investigations should close....

For the (now) ECF, I would absolutely agree - as per Chris's post early on in this threat - that a review of what happened would be extremely beneficial in terms of establishing best practice for the future. Ensuring the appropriate procedures are now in place/that it is clear what the ECF's responsibilities are should this sort of thing arise again. I say if. When would probably be more accurate.

As for the police. I would estimate the chances of any new (or ongoing) investigation into Eley and what he did are precisely zero.

[Reg Clucas]

I seem to think he was agitating about the Miles-Keene dispute shortly before he vanished.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it was Eley who officially raised the Tunis business with the ECF. I can't remember why I think this now but presumably it's on the Streatham Blog somewhere.

Apparently Miles asked him to - https://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot. ... rch?q=eley

[JustinHorton]

However

[David Sedgwick]

I do seem to have led a sheltered life so far as Savile was concerned.

[Roger Lancaster]

For the (now) ECF, I would absolutely agree - as per Chris's post early on in this threat - that a review of what happened would be extremely beneficial in terms of establishing best practice for the future. Ensuring the appropriate procedures are now in place/that it is clear what the ECF's responsibilities are should this sort of thing arise again. I say if. When would probably be more accurate.

Agreed - but with the caveat that, unbeknown to the rest of us, "this sort of thing" may already have happened or be happening. The experience of other sports suggests that the chess community shouldn't be complacent.

[Jonathan Bryant]

For the (now) ECF, I would absolutely agree - as per Chris's post early on in this threat - that a review of what happened would be extremely beneficial in terms of establishing best practice for the future. Ensuring the appropriate procedures are now in place/that it is clear what the ECF's responsibilities are should this sort of thing arise again. I say if. When would probably be more accurate.

Agreed - but with the caveat that, unbeknown to the rest of us, "this sort of thing" may already have happened or be happening. The experience of other sports suggests that the chess community shouldn't be complacent.

Agreed.

I’ve said before when this (Eley) has come up and no doubt it’s just as true now:-

I’m quite sure that right now someone somewhere in England is using chess as a means to gain access children.

[Jonathan Bryant]

I don't for one minute think that what happens in chess is a direct parallel to what has apparently been happening in gymnastics.

But neither do I think that this article from Sean Ingle

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/ ... -regulator


is completely irrelevant to our situation

[Nick Ivell]

There are more questions than answers, and I suspect this will be for ever the case where Eley (one is never tempted to call him Brian) is concerned.

[GaryLane]

I played in the infamous 1980 Glorney Cup team where Eley was installed as Captain. At the time I knew, along with any regular tournament players he could not be trusted around male players and it was a shocking decision.
His favourite ruse during the tournament was to offer wine and chocolate to the English juniors.

[Kevin Thurlow]

John Wheeler has registered with the forum but has not yet been activated, so he has asked me to post this:-

"“I remember the Glorney Cup in Portsmouth in 1980 because I had a small role in it.

Terry Hollington asked me to be a member of the Appeals committee, and assured me that it would not need much of my time.

It turned out differently. We had at least two fairly acrimonious meetings, concerning Brian Eley’s ridiculous behaviour with the English squad. We bent over backwards to try to accommodate him, but to no avail.

In the last round, Terry decided he had no option but to disqualify the England team. I think the players actually agreed with this.

At this point things began to get a bit murky.

The BCF did not support Terry’s decision to disqualify England, and he was very disappointed, to say the least. He had a lot of support locally and nationally, but not from the BCF.

Unfortunately, he soon decided to withdraw from chess organizing altogether.

He was an effective and popular organiser of junior chess in Portsmouth and Hampshire, and proved to be impossible to replace. He got involved with Scrabble, and no doubt became a successful organizer there, Their gain was chess’s loss.”"