Hampshire Chess Junior Championship 1975 – 1976

The Hampshire Junior Championships for 1975 / 1976 had seven tournaments in total.

Under 18 Individual Championship
Major Invitational
Minor Invitational
Rising Stars
Shooting Stars
Under 14 Boys
Under 14 Girls

Links

Downloads

As to which order these tournaments stood after the main under 18th in regards to grading I am uncertain, But on the presumption that Major would be higher than Minor I would assume this was the higher rated tournament?

Detailed below is a small summary of each tournament from what I can determine from the results. A number of players will be familiar from the other published Hampshire and Southsea ones. Players which I have not come across from the previous uploads do include future Labour MP’s and twin sisters Angela and Maria Eagle. If anyone has additional information / games from the tournaments please supply and I will update accordingly.

Under 18 Championship

The HCA Under 18 Individual Championship had 23 runners, with a number of known Hampshire juniors participating. This included the reigning champion from the previous two years Paul Hackman. Ray Williams, Jane Seymour, Martin Buckmaster, Carey Groves and Bob Noyce were some of the other known players.

Paul Hackman could not achieve the hattrick of wins, as after winning his first two games, could only add another half point in his last three games. Tim Love, who was third in the 73 / 74 Under 18 and did not participate in 74 / 75 jointly won with four wins and a last round draw to share with Steve Hooker who also won his first four games.

I do know know much about Tim Love, but noticed that he was playing for Norfolk by 1978, as detailed in some of the excellent SCCU Bulletins which are available at the SCCU website.

As to Steve Hooker the most notable game I can find from is, is a loss to 10 year old Nigel Short in 1975 when he would also have been a junior, This is a great sacrificial game by Nigel in a French Winawer which has been published on You Tube.

There were four players a point behind the joint winners, with Allan J Griffiths taken third on tie-break with P.Eastlake, M.Meaton and Ray Williams on 4th to 6th respectively.

Major Invitational

Twenty players over 5 rounds battled in the Major Invitational. A number of players who have been played in other tournaments posted such as A.J.Griffiths and Jane Seymour participated asn well as a P.Anderson who I presume is Peter Anderson, who plays for Ringwood in the Southampton and Bournemouth leagues.

P.Bishop was 4 games and drew one to take outright first place, with A.J.Griffiths, M.Farrington and R.Berdusco finishing equal 2nd a whole point behind. I don’t know anything about P.Bishop and this is probably the worst player’s name to look for on the internet for background information related to chess!

Also of interest were the participation of the Eagle twin sisters, with Angela scoring half a point more than Maria with 2 points and 1 and a half respectively. They are more well known for their political careers than chess and are both Labour MP’s. Angela went on to become joint winner of the British Girls’ Under-18 chess championship in 1976 with Jane Garwell which Maria aslo participated in. This was the championship which was held at Portsmouth. BritBase: 63rd British Championship 1976, Portsmouth (saund.co.uk) has further information on this tournament.

Minor Invitational

As per the Major there were twenty participants in the Minor, competing over 4 rounds. A number of Portsmouth players such as Sharon Prince, the Scotneys and Carey Groves played, but the winner with a 100% score was P.Watkins. D.Spurgeon, D.Seawert and D.Branford were 1 point behind on 3 out of 4.

Rising Stars

As well as the Major and Minor there were two tournaments for stars for the future. The first of these was the Rising Stars which was played over 4 rounds, with 14 entries. I am not familar with the winner A.Granat who won all four of his games to take 1st place. The 2nd place player P.Coxen only lost to the winner, finishing in clear 2nd with 3 points.

Shooting Stars

The Shooting Stars tournament was held over 4 rounds with 16 players. Notable junior from other Hampshire Junior tournament J.Scotney won his 4 games and finished 1 point ahead of P.Spurgeon, S.Picking, S.Chittenden and N.Carr. There seems to have been some tie-break, as there is a 2nd, 3rd and equal 4th detailed in the scoretable.

I am not sure if N.Carr was Fide master Neil Carr, who would have been about 8 at this time?

Under 14 Boys

The under 14 tournaments were split into separate Boys and Girls ones. Both were played over 6 rounds, with the boys being a swiss and the girls and all play all. Gary Scotney carried over his excellent form from the Shooting Stars to win the Boys tournament with 5 straight wins and a final round draw to finish half a point ahead of John Pottage. In third place on 4 and a half points was Dean Lines.

Under 14 Girls

The under 14 girls tournament was dominated by Terri Ruff who won all her games, finishing 1 and half points ahead of Julia Scotney. Emma Dove just finished ahead of Tina Ruff to take third place.