Aug 03 2021 60 mins
Ben Graff reviews this excellent book here - https://chesscircuit.substack.com/p/a-history-of-chess-in-the-english
This book covers more than a hundred years of chess in the Civil Service, with information about the clubs, the individuals, the events they contested, the successes, and the arguments that sometimes resulted.
Clubs regularly featured leading players of the day and the Civil Service representative team frequently beat strong counties in 50-board matches, as well as participating in a mammoth 500-board match against the rest of England. Names of chess clubs bring a whiff of nostalgia, with India Office, War Office and Civil Service Rifles no longer in existence. Leading players served their country not only in their departments, but at establishments like Bletchley Park in the Second World War. Several civil servants represented their country in international matches. Over a thousand players participated in the league at one stage.
"The original plan was to include maybe 50 annotated games, as we had no idea how much material we would find. When it became clear that there was a lot of information, we (or maybe I) thought it better to concentrate on the history aspect. I have built a database of about 1400 games from CS league, matches and tournaments, and also CS players playing elsewhere, which I am adding to, and I thought I might offer John Saunders the games for Britbase at some stage. Once the book got over 500 pages, adding the games was difficult!" - Kevin Thurlow.
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