Keith Spooner

[John Upham]

Had the English Chess Forum a "Reply" mechanism then, naturally, I would have used that!

Click on the double apostrophe icon that appears in the top right hand corner of any message to reply to it quoting by default the message that you are replying to.

[James Plaskett]

An interesting connection to the Who Wants to be a Millionaire thread - Keith's son, Paddy, has twice won a quarter of a million pounds / Australian dollars on the show:
https://www.advertiserandtimes.co.uk/ne ... e-9151391/

His third appearance, on the Irish version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, was not so successful - he walked away with a mere €1,000!
https://millionaire.fandom.com/wiki/Paddy_Spooner

(Let's see if THIS time this post is not deemed "Off Topic" !)

Two days ago, after all this Covid Lockdown madness, the nationwide tour of QUIZ the play recommenced - https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/a ... r-20230120

This time it´s Rory Bremner who plays Tarrant https://uk.news.yahoo.com/rory-bremner- ... 00496.html and Mark Benton is to portray Paddy Spooner.

Paddy, along with another old hand of Millionaire?, Keith Burgess, ran one of perhaps as many as eight syndicates who funnelled strong quizzers on to the show by paying for their telephone calls to get on whilst taking a healthy % of their prize money.

Indeed, Paddy and Keith co-authored a book about their scam published in 2021 called Quiz, the Consortium, the Truth.
https://www.amazon.com/Quiz-Consortium- ... B098W78J28

The title is obviously a piss-take of the book I co-authored with the late Bob Woffinden: Bad Show, the Cough, the Millionaire Major.

[James Plaskett]

Oh dear, O Lor...

let´s see if these CORRECT links are admissable in place of the INcorrect ones in that above Reply of mine (!)
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/ ... tMwZw-6gXo

https://www.amazon.com/Quiz-Consortium- ... 346&sr=8-1

[Lee Bullock]

Totally devastated to see this. . Keith was one of the greatest characters on the chess circuit. I was so drawn to him as he was me. 2 years ago due to covid etc and having not seen Keith in a while I contacted his local chess club. And they gave me his number after asking him
If it was ok. He was delighted to hear from me. We had many chats over the past year. I kept joking with him wow Keith you still fighting and still alive. He was so proud to have lived past all expectations. He had suffered many hearty attacks and awful health. I said you gotta donate your body to medical science. I was even arranging to go see him if I was ever close to Bournmouth.

But due to my mums health when she got cancer in January I didn’t feel well enough myself to even call him. My mum died on July 14th. 12 days after Keith. I had been meaning to call Keith and kept putting it off or forgetting. Feel awful. We had such laughs. And he would always joke and be proud of his drawing achievements. He once boasted he drew 17 games on the trot. Including 2 tournaments on the trot. He even drew me once. And I never draw. Will miss him so much. Rip Keith.