Glorney Cup 1950

The Glorney Cup for 1950 was held at St. Illtyd’s College, Cardiff, on July 27-28, 1950. Three teams again competed. The controller was W. Ritson Morry.

In the opening match, England had a lopsided win against Wales, though the BCM report (by Welsh board 1 Walter Marshall) notes that Perry and Burrows both threw away slight advantages to lose, which Marshall attributed to inexperience.

Honan’s win against Marshall on board 1 was awarded the best game prize for the tournament. The game (pgn) does not seem to be in databases; for example, it is missing from Chessbase’s Big Database 2017. (No other games from the event are available.)

Later the same day, Ireland and Wales battled it out to a drawn match. Marshall’s win against Conlon won second prize in the best game contest. The BCM report notes that Cohen and O’Riordan were both in bad time trouble, “ten moves in less than two minutes” (how times change; this would be a leisurely pace for modern juniors), and Cohen gave away a rook and queen in successive moves. The game on board 6 took three sessions and 7½ hours, and finally Cantwell secured the win and saved the match for Ireland.

On Thurday morning, “the English steamroller again went to work”, and Ireland were defeated 4½ – 1½.

So England once again finished first, with full match points. Ireland and Wales tied for second and third places on match points. Some newspaper reports listed Ireland second on game points, but it is not at all clear whether this tie-break applied in the early years. (The Glorney Cups of 1957 and 1963 finished in ties that would have been resolved by game points.)

Theo R. D. Grove (2/2), P. K. Marshall (1½/2), and Charles Cantwell (1/1) received the prizes for top scores for their respective teams. In Ireland’s case, Courtney, Fagan (rounding out an outstanding Glorney career) and O’Riordan also scored 1 point.

The Irish team was Eugene Courtney (Royal Belfast Academical Institution), Irish Schoolboys’ champion 1950, Michael Fagan (Westland Row C.B.S., Dublin), 1932?-2015, Leinster Schoolboys’ champion 1950, Tom Conlon (O’Connell Schools, Dublin), 1932?-2019, Irish runner-up 1950, Fintan Doyle (Terenure College, Dublin), Ken O’Riordan (Rockwell College, Co. Tipperary), Charles Cantwell (Rockwell College, Co. Tipperary), and 12-year-old Sam Ferris (Grosvenor High School, Belfast), ca. 1937-2018, Ulster Schoolboys’ champion 1950. Of these, Courtney, Cantwell, and Ferris made their débuts. The manager was P. W. Whelan.

The English team was Neill Thomas Honan (London), 1932-2002, David V. W. Lofts (Leyton, London), Alan J. Willson (Coventry), R. L. Sweeney (Solihull), Ian R. Bradley (Doncaster), and Theo R. D. Grove (Dudley), 1933-2002. None of these players had played in the Glorney Cup before.

Neil Honan later finished second in the British Universities Championship in 1952. In 1984, he wrote an article for BCM, which was prefaced by an introductory editorial biographical note: “The author of this article, born 1932, was prominent in British junior and University chess circles in the decades after the war, but polio and other illnesses meant that he was largely lost to the game for the next two decades.”

The Welsh team was Walter Marshall (St. Illtyd’s College), 1932-1996, J. Graham T. Jones (Port Talbot), P. K. Marshall, C. R. Perry, A. Cohen, and Brian F. Burrows (Bridgend), b. 1936. The last four, at least, had not played previously in a Glorney Cup.

The event venue St. Illtyd’s College (which merged with another school in 1987) was, as noted above, Walter Marshall’s school. At the time of this event, it was located at Courtenay Road.

[Update, April 24, 2021: added details on J. G. T. Jones based on reference below; modified format slightly.]

[Update, July 14, 2022: corrected Honan’s first name and added middle name and vital dates based on reference below.]