IRLchess

The Glorney Cup for 1972 was held in Sidcup, England. Six teams competed, including the Netherlands and France.

The Irish team was Bernard Kernan, Stephen Meyler, Tony Spillane, Colm Quigley, Robert Pye, John Nicholson, and Rod Nixon.

Ireland finished fifth, losing 4½-1½ to the Netherlands, France, and England, and 3½-2½ to Scotland, and winning 4-2 versus Wales.

England, with John Nunn, Jonathan Speelman, and Jonathan Mestel on the top three boards, easily finished first, though Nunn only managed 50% (+1 =3 -1), losing to Bernard Kernan.

Up to now Kernan’s win has been the only game from this event given in the ICU games archive, but Kevin O’Connell sent the full set of games, typed in by him form the tournament booklet, three years ago. (The delay in posting them was due to an idea of mine to develop tournament reports for team events, but that project is still pending.) The 30 Irish games have been added to the games collection here. The pgn file for the full event, including non-Irish games and three reserve player games, can be found here.

Here’s a crushing win from Ireland’s match against Wales. Black now played 16… Re8? (16… Be6 was essential). White continued 17. c4 (even better was 17. Rxf7! immediately) 17… Nc7 18. Rxf7! Kxf7 19. Qxh7+ Ke6 20. Rd1 Rf8 21. Qxg6+ Kxe5 22. Re1+ (22. Qe4+ Kd6 23. Qe7 mate was quicker) 22… Kd4 23. Bf6+ 1-0

[Click to replay the full game.]

Michael Fagan’s opponent in the Ireland-Wales 1949 Glorney Cup match was Walter Marshall, later Baron Marshall of Goring and described in the The Independent as “one of the more colourful technocrats of our age” in his 1996 obituary. 

In 1984 Marshall penned some notes about his chess career and continuing interest in the game. Here is his memory of that 1949 game:

My most vivid recollection is arriving in Birmingham in 1949 captaining the Welsh junior team to play for the first time in the Glorney Cup Competition.

We six Welsh schoolboys were very naive, entirely self-taught chess players. We had never seen a chess clock before and had no idea what they were for but were too ashamed to display our ignorance by asking questions and therefore followed the example of everybody else by banging our clock lever after we had made our move, just like everybody else did. I remember my first match was against an Irishman. Since I was determined not to lose I played very slowly, when to my horror the controller of the competition, Ritson Morry, whispered in my ear that I had exactly 20 moves to make in 3 minutes else I would lose on time. In that hasty and whispered conversation I realised for the very first time that chess clocks had a real purpose, namely to stop me stone-walling in slow play. I promptly launched a sacrificial attack against my opponent’s king and to my total astonishment the sacrifice turned out to be sound and I won. On that occasion Sir George Thomas gave the best game prize to me and I recall that the score of that game was published with some generous praise of my coolness under great time pressure. Fortunately I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut so nobody actually realised it was really a fluke. If you can find the score of that game in your records I would actually enjoy playing it through again.

[Source: British Chess Magazine, Volume 104 (1984), pages 499-500]

The second Glorney Cup, held in Birmingham, July 27-28, 1949, featured three teams, with Wales joining Ireland and England. (Scotland were due to take part, but seem to have dropped out shortly before the event.)

The OlimpBase page gives the final match results and scores. England won again, after a 3½-2½ win against Ireland and a 5½-½ win over Wales. Ireland beat Wales 3½-2½ to finish second.

The OlimpBase report mentions that the game W. Marshall (Wales) versus M. Fagan (Ireland) won the best game prize. I haven’t seen that mentioned in other sources, but the game itself was given by J. J. Walsh in his Irish Times column several years later. Up to now, it has not appeared in any databases, including the ICU games collection.

The diagram shows the position after Fagan’s 19… h5?. Play continued 20. f5! exf5 21. Rxh5! gxh5? (better 21… Bd7, though White is still much better) 22. Rxf5, and one way or another the black queen will be lost. After 22… Qxf5 23. Bxf5 the raw material balance (queen and pawn versus two rooks) was about level, but Black’s open king position gave White an overwhelming advantage. (Move the h5 pawn to g7 in that position and Black is still very much in the game.)

[Click to replay the full game.]

Black was Michael Fagan, Irish Schools’ Champion in 1949; in this photo from around that time he’s playing Black in the game nearest the camera (cf. puzzle and solution from a few years ago). He won his other game in the 1949 Glorney Cup, on board 1 against England, defeating M. Barker.

The Irish team was Michael Fagan, T. Conlon (runner-up in the Irish Schools’ Championship), J. J. Walsh (Leinster Schools’ Champion), Brian Canton, Fintan Doyle, and F. Maher.