Aubrey Spalton Memorial Trophy 2012

[AMZ1981Participant]

For those who are unaware, every year Harrogate and York play an annual match. The trophy is dedicated in memory of Aubrey Spalton (1907-2000), a stalwart of Harrogate Chess Club whose involvement can be traced as far back as the war years. Aubrey was a wonderful gentleman of the old school and still very much missed. This year’s match, played on Monday 23rd April was the thirteenth in the series.

Events followed a curious pattern last night with York repeatedly taking the lead only for Harrogate to pull one back. However a sudden flurry of Harrogate victories on the bottom boards put them into the lead before York came back; their greater strength on the top boards giving them a point lead with one to play. Harrogate’s hopes depended upon Richard Tate who was playing a difficult position with both sides short of time; the York flag unfortunately fell first to make the second tied match of the series. York now lead by ten wins to one with two draws.

The full results are as follows – I hope to add pictures and games shortly.

HARROGATE VS YORK
1 Mick Stokes 1-0 Jos Woolley
2 Douglas McKerracher 0-1 Jean-Luc Weller
3 Jonathan Round 0-1 Patrick Gower
4 Mark Daley 0-1 Pierre Weller
5 Chris Miller 1/2-1/2 Paul Barber
6 Raymond Baker 0-1 Paul Johnson
7 Colin Burt 0-1 Jon Griffith
8 Brian Coop 1-0 Peter Cloudsdale
9 Andrew Zigmond 0-1 Herbert Lockwood
10 Jack Duckworth 1/2-1/2 Norman Andrews
11 Charlie Callis 1-0 David Short
12 Gary Cooper 0-1 Neville Pearce
13 Gordon Marks 1-0 Sri Sriharan
14 Richard Tate 1-0 Paul Masiak
15 Peter Gregory 1-0 Mick Beavers
16 Malcolm McHugh 1-0 Rodney Mitchinson

[Idle_KnightModerator]

AMZ 1981 – I was really interested to read this post. It’s great to hear about these type of competitions going on in Yorkshire that have real local history.

I really miss the Bradford DCA vs Leeds CA pre-season matches which were a regular fixture when I started playing league chess in the 90′s. I think they were played over something like 20 boards, and attracted a number of top players from each league.

Bradford DCA did play an inter-city match about a year ago against Manchester Chess Federation. I organised a 20 board match, consisting of of 5 grading bands of 4 players to ensure a close match. It worked really well as the final result was 10.5 – 9.5 in favour of Bradford.

I think this is a really good format to promote close relations amongst the various Northern “chess centres” outside of the normal counties/woodhouse/4NCL competitions. It would be great to hear of a few more in the coming years.

Good luck to Harrogate for next year, it sounds like they need to go on a bit of a run to catch York up

[AMZ1981Participant]

[Event "Aubrey Spalton"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2012.04.23"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Marks, Gordon"]
[Black "Sriharan, Sri"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C00"]
[PlyCount "47"]

1. e4 e6 2. f4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Bb5 Bd7 6. O-O Nxe5 7. fxe5 Bxb5 8. d3
h6 9. Nc3 Bc6 10. Qe1 Ne7 11. Qg3 Nf5 12. Qh3 Be7 13. Ne2 Qb6 14. c3 c4+ 15. d4
Qd8 16. Ng3 Nh4 17. Nxh4 Bxh4 18. Nh5 Rg8 19. Qg4 Kf8 20. Qxe6 Qd7 21. Qg6 Re8
22. b3 Qe6 23. Ba3+ Qe7 24. Qxf7# 1-0

[Author]

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