Bradford’s Woodhouse team

[MartinCarpenter]

Let’s use this place a little

Anyone know what has happened to Bradford A’s Woodhouse team? They defaulted their last match 8-0 and the Bradford A team who played yesterday looked awfully like the normal Bradford B team.....
(+ a couple of A team players.).

[Eric Gardiner]

Let’s use this place a little

I have been slightly anxiously wondering whether you are going to start posting match reports on here ...

I don't know the answer to your question of course - possibly Alan or Ihor who post on here would be willing to say something?

[MartinCarpenter]

I have reasons not to talk about that match too much

I do think your second teams dreams of promotion maybe indicate a problem we've got developing about the gap between the Woodhouse and IMB. Nothing to be done there I think mind, beyond finding some functioning junior systems......

[Andrew Zigmond]

I have reasons not to talk about that match too much

I do think your second teams dreams of promotion maybe indicate a problem we've got developing about the gap between the Woodhouse and IMB. Nothing to be done there I think mind, beyond finding some functioning junior systems......

John Hipshon, Phill Beckett, Noel Stewart and myself, along with many others I could name, have done a lot of work this season to try to get `functioning junior systems` up and running within Yorkshire. Your main contribution, as ever, is posting on forums about what other people ought to be doing.

But in the spirit of Yorkshire comradeship I'll tell you where you can make a difference. I have a lot of respect for the York RI D captain (who doesn't use email, let alone this forum so I won't name him) but I've heard that he won't select juniors for the team. York has at least two very capable teenagers (Bradley Triffitt and Josh Burland) who don't get a chance to play in Yorkshire league and would be a better investment than York RI D contingent of pensioners. I'm sure with your influence you could fight their corner.

[Eric Gardiner]

John Hipshon, Phill Beckett, Noel Stewart and myself, along with many others I could name, have done a lot of work this season to try to get `functioning junior systems` up and running within Yorkshire. Your main contribution, as ever, is posting on forums about what other people ought to be doing.

I'll leave Martin to clarify the comments he made about junior chess but just as a general point I'd like to say we don't know about everything others are doing. Possibly he drives players to away matches (I actually know he doesn't but that is just an example), possibly he does volunteer work in other areas apart from chess, possibly he is busy with a young family and just posts on forums for a break from kids etc etc.

[MartinCarpenter]

Nah, I mostly post on forums to waste time Sometimes to point out problems, because that's actually a useful thing to do.

My point was actually quite simple - if a team like Hull B are seriously threatening promotion to the Woodhouse (and they are) then we've got a real problem with the gap between the two divisions. We do of course, and we all know why as well and there isn't a simple solution.

Oh, can we please leave the York D captain out of it? He's by far the sanest, most effective, person at York - we wouldn't have a club without him. We've definitely had juniors in York's D team before now and hopefully will again.

Those 2 juniors you mentioned might well eventually be good players at some stage, but in the meantime they've each only played a handful of YCA rated games this season and have live grades of 51 and 69. Absolutely nothing to suggest they're nearly strong enough to usefully benefit from Saturday chess yet.

[Ihor Lewyk]

Hi Martin,
Sorry I don't use this forum often but was surprised to see this question.
All I can say is we have a lot of players who would like to play for the team but who also have other commitments too. Myself included! Sadly this sometimes means we have wildly differing strengths of teams available to us but the other week when we were meant to play York B we only had 3 players available.
We need to get more notice from players perhaps but that isn't always possible.
Although we have a big squad a lot of our 'squad' players need more notice if they are to make time to play.
We are open to constructive suggestions of how to do this but maybe it should be contained within the club. Anyone else offering tips might sound patronizing.

As for juniors. There is a lot of commendable work going on to progress juniors into chess. Even in Bradford! But the problem the YCA should address is how to give these juniors an avenue to progress to the Yorkshire league and County championship teams. Representing their city and then Yorkshire was of great pride to my parents when I was starting out and this is the feeling we have failed in the main to capitalize on. Maybe the work of Chess in Schools targets too young an audience because when I was still at school my parents were not keen on my being at matches until 10:30 in the evening on a school night.
Clubs need to give young children an opportunity of playing at a time more suitable to their needs.
Bradford league have recently resurrected a club night from 7pm to 9pm. It will hopefully grow and attract some of the youngsters too. There will be experienced players present to offer coaching, training games and advice.

[MartinCarpenter]

I was just surprised because you've normally been so consistent. Glad to hear there's nothing really wrong

Some slight annoyance about how it distorted the relegation fight but it does happen. Like the 7-0 to Central which was absolutely bad luck on Sheffield B's part!


You might be right about club nights - certainly the thing that worked to attract and keep a bunch of juniors to York chess (20+ years back now but still the bulk of the B/C team squads) wasn't Saturdays. There was a junior evening league team, the RI championship & some fun chess variant evenings etc.

Saturday Yorkshire league chess is a big time commitment at venues I think none of us would call truly attractive, so you have to be fairly keen to join in to start with.

[Andrew Zigmond]

Nah, I mostly post on forums to waste time Sometimes to point out problems, because that's actually a useful thing to do.

My point was actually quite simple - if a team like Hull B are seriously threatening promotion to the Woodhouse (and they are) then we've got a real problem with the gap between the two divisions. We do of course, and we all know why as well and there isn't a simple solution.

Oh, can we please leave the York D captain out of it? He's by far the sanest, most effective, person at York - we wouldn't have a club without him. We've definitely had juniors in York's D team before now and hopefully will again.

Those 2 juniors you mentioned might well eventually be good players at some stage, but in the meantime they've each only played a handful of YCA rated games this season and have live grades of 51 and 69. Absolutely nothing to suggest they're nearly strong enough to usefully benefit from Saturday chess yet.

There's so much that's wrong here that it's hard to know where to start.

Firstly and regarding the overall strength of the Yorkshire league; it is true that the IM Brown isn't quite as strong at present as it has been in the past. You get these little peaks and troughs from time to time; as with everything a `boom` can be followed by a recession as some players are forced to drop out of chess and teams suffer as a result. However it is insulting to suggest that Hull DCA B are not worthy promotion contenders as they have been a solid mid table IM Brown team for several years and have played consistently this season to pick up the points where it matters. And if they do win promotion by beating Sheffield C at the end of the month, with a few breaks they might well stay up.

If I agree with you on one thing it's the excellence of the York RI D captain who I've known for many years and is indeed a superb organiser. However I have been told (by a source within York) that he won't currently select juniors. This may not be the case but I'd certainly ask the question.

I'm sorry to say that your last paragraph is at best ignorant and at worst insulting. I have organised some inter club junior chess within Yorkshire this year so I've been able to watch these lads play; they're solid, tenacious and certainly a lot better than I was at their age. The data on chessnuts is very sketchy but it does show a handful of good results against 120+ adult players. They could certainly make a reasonable stab of the lower boards of the IM Brown (assuming York RI D stay up which looks relatively likely) and would be very competitive in the Silver Rook.

As Ihor says there is a gulf between junior and adult chess at the moment. I'm trying to bridge that both within Yorkshire and Harrogate; five juniors have played for Harrogate C this season and I'm proud of that. I don't know what the internal structures are within York but the all conquering Woodhouse Cup captain would almost certainly have a strong voice at any meeting and I'm sure the local juniors might even appreciate him taking a direct interest. So how about it?

[MartinCarpenter]

York has its own internal politics - in which I've actually got relatively little influence. I can see how it could end up looking that way to someone but it absolutely won't be because they're juniors.

I'd absolutely trust the person concerned & actually also our quite good record at integrating juniors the last time round.

Of course I didn't mean any specific team in the IMB - any team which can earn it deserves promotion in that sense.