IRLchess

The Glorney Cup in 1951 was held at the Dublin C.C. clubrooms, at 20 Lincoln Place, from July 25-27, 1951. For the first time, Scotland sent a team.

On the opening day, England, with Malcolm Barker back after taking the previous year off, beat Ireland 5 – 1, with only 13-year-old Sam Ferris, who beat Peter H. Clarke on board 2, preventing a whitewash. Wales beat Scotland 3½ – 2½.

On the second day, England beat Wales 5 – 1 and Ireland beat Scotland by the same score:

On the final day, England recorded an even more convincing win against Scotland, while Ireland drew with Wales:

(Note: board orders are not all certain.)

The three games available (pgn) appear in no database.

So England won easily once again, this time only losing one game (Ferris’ win over Clarke). Ireland and Wales tied on match points for the second consecutive year, and once again this seems to mean they tied for second and third places: Ireland’s better game total did not count. Scotland had a rough introduction to the Glorney Cup, losing all three matches and scoring only 4 game points.

Prizes for highest scores on each team went to Malcolm Barker, Norman Littlewood, and Michael Davis of England (all 3/3), Sam Ferris (2½/3), Brian F. Burrows of Wales (2½/3) and David Kinsler of Scotland (2/3).

The Irish team was Fintan Doyle (Terenure College, Dublin), Leinster Schoolboys’ champion 1951, Sam Ferris (Grosvenor High School, Belfast), ca. 1937-2018, Irish Schoolboys’ champion 1951, J. A. Norris (Synge St. C.B.S., Dublin & Rathmines C.C.), B. Gallagher (St. Mary’s, Rathmines, Dublin), Noel O’Brien (O’Connell’s School, Dublin), David Conlon (O’Connell’s School, Dublin), and Brian Hussey (St. Mary’s, Rathmines, Dublin). Of these, all but Doyle and Ferris made their débuts.

The English team was Malcolm Neil Barker, b. Birmingham, 1934 (see previous posts), Peter Hugh Clarke, b. London, 1933, FM 1984, correspondence chess GM 1980, who played for England in all Olympiads from 1954 to 1968, Norman Littlewood, 1933-1989 (Sheffield), who finished runner-up or joint runner-up in four British championships, and played for England in the Olympiads of 1964 and 1966, Robert Edmond Borland 1934-2017 (Plymouth), Michael Davis, 1935-1998 (biography), and Peter Campbell Gibbs (Bradford), later joint British Boys’ champion (1952). All except Barker made their débuts.

The Welsh team was J. Graham T. Jones (Port Talbot), P. K. Marshall, J. A. Cohen, Brian F. Burrows (Bridgend), A. C. Thomas, P. V. Williams, and D. Rowe Jones (Port Talbot). J. G. T. Jones, Marshall, Burrows, and probably Cohen had played before (“A. Cohen” played the previous year).

The Scottish team was Fergus George H. M. Nicholson, b. Dumfries, 1935, Scottish Boys’ champion 1951, later a leading light in the Communist Party of Great Britain, D. G. Weir, Raymond Wallace Martin Baxter, 1933?–2018 (biographical sketch), who played for Scotland in the 1964 Olympiad, David Kinsler (biographical sketch), and for the remaining players, L. G. Hepburn, and G. W. Kerr, I have no information beyond the scorecards.

A photo (of low resolution) of Barker – Doyle and Borland – Gallagher, round 1, appears in the Evening Herald, July 26, 1951 p. 3. A photo (of decent resolution) of Doyle – Jones, round 3, appears in the Irish Press, July 28, 1951 p. 9. A photo (of lowish resolution) of Malcolm Barker receiving the Cup from the Lord Mayor of Dublin, with the other team captains present, appears in the Evening Herald, July 28, 1951 p. 7. A photo of Fintan Doyle is given in the Sunday Independent, April 1, 1951 p. 8. A photo of the O’Connell School team, including Noel O’Brien and David Conlon, that won the Leinster Senior Schools’ League in 1950-51 is given in the Sunday Independent, January 22, 1951 p. 8. Photos including Fergus Nicholson (from 1950) and Malcolm Barker (from 1952) are shown on the Scottish Teams in the Glorney Cup page on the Chess Scotland web site.

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.]

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).]

The Glorney Cup 1965 was held in Glasgow, at the new University of Strathclyde, on August 3 and 4. Four teams competed: the previous year’s event in London had included France and the Netherlands, but for cost reasons it was not feasible to repeat that in 1965.

The Irish team in board order was Ray Byrne, John Moles, Tony Cafferky, J. McCallion, John Gibson, Ken Clarke, and Paul Henry. The event won high praise for its playing conditions and organisation, but the results were disappointing from the Irish point of view: the team lost all three matches, by lop-sided scores, to finish last, winning no games and only drawing 7 out of 18.

We’re fortunate that the full tournament booklet is available, including all 36 games, thanks to John Gibson. Based on this, a full tournament report has been added here. As far as I know, these games are not available anywhere else.

One puzzle emerges: Ireland’s score would have been more respectable if John Moles had not agreed a draw in a clearly winning position and Ken Clarke in a near-winning position against Wales. Why?

The overall event is notable as the first, and still the only, occasion on which Scotland finished clear first. After Scotland and England each won 5-1 against Ireland and 4½-1½ against Wales, they met in the last round. With Scotland leading 3-2, it all came down to the last game to finish, the board 2 game between T. C. Fox (England) and John M. Glendinning (Scotland).

The diagrammed position shows a critical moment. White wins easily via 59. a5, or by 59. Kf5 Bd2 60. Kg4; even 59. Kd7 wins. Instead Fox played 59. Ke5?, blocking the h2-b8 diagonal, and the win should have been gone. Even then, after 59… Bd2 60. Bd8, Glendinning erred with 60… e3? (60… Kh6! draws, as in the game), allowing 61. Bg5, again winning easily. After the game’s 61. Bh4? e2 62. Kd6 Kh6! 63. Kxc6 Kxh5 64. Bf2 Kg4, the win and the Cup had gone: the point is that 65. Kxd5 is met by 65… Kf3 66. Bh4 Kg4 with a repetition.

[Click to replay the full game.]