Glorney Cup 1949

We have previously discussed the 1949 Glorney Cup here, with Michael Fagan’s loss against the Welsh board 1 Walter Marshall, and Marshall’s reminiscences many years later about the game and the event.

To recap, event was held in Birmingham on August 27-28. Wales joined Ireland and England, and the format was a single-round all-play-all over six boards, with match points counting.

Ireland did vastly better in the opening match against England than the previous year’s lop-sided results, losing narrowly 3½ – 2½. Indeed, according to J. J. Walsh, Ireland had good chances to tie or win the match in the drawn games on the lower boards. Ireland had the consolation of a win on board 1, where Michael Fagan beat Malcolm Barker; Fagan adjourned in an advantageous position, possibly winning, and Barker gave up without resuming.

Contemporary newspaper reports in the Irish papers gave the scorecard for England – Wales next, but that is inconsistent with Marshall’s recollections [see also update of April 15, 2021]. The Ireland – Wales match was another close one, this time with Ireland ending on the winning side:

Finally, England won easily against Wales:

The Irish team was Michael Fagan (Westland Row C.B.S., Dublin), Irish Schoolboys’ champion 1949; Tom Conlon (O’Connell’s, Dublin), –2019, Irish runner-up 1949; J. J. Walsh (Belvedere College, Dublin & Clontarf C.C.), b. 1932, Leinster Schoolboys’ champion 1949; Brian Canton (O’Connell’s, Dublin), 1930-2019; Frank Maher (St. Mary’s College, Dublin), –2019; and Fintan Doyle (Terenure College, Dublin), Leinster Junior Schoolboys’ champion 1949.

The team originally selected included the Ulster Schoolboys’ champion J. W. A. Mills, at board 4, but he was replaced shortly before the event by Doyle.

The English top three boards were Malcolm Neil Barker (King Edward’s School, Birmingham), b. 1934, British Boys’ champion 1949; Jonathan Penrose (cf. post on 1948 event); and Ian Marshall. B. A. Pritchard (Smetwick) played in the first World Junior Championship in 1951 [added in update of April 15, 2021]. For the remaining players, D. V. Lofts and R. Hill, I have no information beyond the scorecards.

Barker was a very interesting player and I will have much more on him in a separate post.

The Welsh board 1 was Walter Marshall, 1932-1996, later Chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, the Central Electricity Generating Board, and National Power, Fellow of the Royal Society (1971), who received a succession of honours culminating (cf. David’s post) in being made Baron Marshall of Goring. For the remaining players, J. Murphy, S. Usher, G. Jones, T. Marsden, and J. Jones, I have no further information beyond the scorecards.

The OlimpBase report (which does not seem to be directly linkable) says that “the enlarging of the event was marked by the presentation by Mr Glorney of the magnificent trophy and recently valued at £350”, but this must be incorrect, as reports on the 1948 event described the “Celtic Cup of artistic design” (Irish Independent, August 27, 1948 p. 8) presented by C. P. Glorney for the tournament, variously described as the “Glorney Perpetual Challenge Cup” (Irish Independent, August 28, 1948 p. 8) and the “Glorney International Challenge Cup” (Irish Press, August 28, 1948 p. 9).

[Update, April 15, 2021: The BCM report gives full scorecards, and lists Ireland v. Wales as the second match, in accordance with Walter Marshall’s recollection. BCM gives “D. V. Lofts” instead of “D. Loftus” as in the newspaper reports; since the BCM report on the 1950 event agrees, this seems more likely to be correct, and the scorecards have been changed accordingly. The board orders given for the first two matches by BCM are different from those provided earlier (which showed Loftus/Lofts, Hill, and Pritchard as boards 4, 5, 6 respectively for England in the first match, with same opponents, and Canton, Maher as boards 4 and 5 respectively for Ireland in the second match, and the scorecards above have been adjusted accordingly. BCM gives Barker as playing board 1 for England against Wales, which was previously given as uncertain, and this has been changed also. An extra initial for B. A. Pritchard has been added based on the Birmingham Junior International Tournament 1950 cited by David (see also the BritBase page on the same event).]