County Team Events for Children between 12 and 18?

[John Upham]

I'd like to discover what county teams events are available for children between 12 and 18 years of age.

Huge amounts of time and effort are spent on organising events for primary aged children and for older children the efforts drops off sharply.

What are the reasons for this?

[NickFaulks]

I'd like to discover what county teams events are available for children between 12 and 18 years of age.

In the Home Counties they could get a serious game most Saturdays and would be very welcome.

[John Upham]

I'd like to discover what county teams events are available for children between 12 and 18 years of age.

In the Home Counties they could get a serious game most Saturdays and would be very welcome.

Nick,

Yes, I appreciate that and thanks.

What I should have written to be clear was a search for team events especially for children of the ages specified rather than simply inserting them into adult teams.

[Roger Lancaster]

I'd like to discover what county teams events are available for children between 12 and 18 years of age.

Huge amounts of time and effort are spent on organising events for primary aged children and for older children the efforts drops off sharply.

What are the reasons for this?

Wish I could answer John's question but, instead, it's one which I sometimes ask myself. My experience is that the "(county team) events for primary aged children" revolve around the EPSCA contests in March through to May - some counties arrange practice events in January/February - but otherwise the u-12's aren't particularly well served for county team events either. The ECF reckons to organise u-18 and u-13 events (see https://www.englishchess.org.uk/Juniors/counties-main/) but the scheduling of these seems somewhat erratic.

Of course, there's the Junior 4 Nations which is excellent but restrictive due to minimum prescribed rating levels - I have juniors who play (and win games) in Division 3 of the main 4NCL but aren't deemed strong enough (with ratings, say, around 1100 although in reality probably rather stronger) to play in the junior version. Those aren't county events and maybe part of the answer is at club level - in the north-west London area, there's a junior club league although still at embryonic stage with just three clubs (Harrow, Uxbridge, Watford) competing. Matches usually start at 6.0 or 6.30 and are played at a reasonably fast 45' + 15" rate and so end much earlier - the prospect of school next morning is a consideration for many - than matches between 'adult' teams.