Hampshire have played in the Southern Counties Chess Union (SCCU), West of England Chess Union (WECU) and the Chiltern League. These competitions have various sections and I have attempted to detail these on this page. A number of sources have been used for this information, which are included in the Acknowledgement and Sources.
Results for all known matches are detailed in the table on the Hampshire County Matches page. Indvidual match details have been added for some matches and this will continue.
Southern Counties Chess Union (SCCU)
A number of these competitions have been split into a North and South section, where the winners play a final to determine the winner of the trophy. Hampshire played from in the SCCU from 1893 to the 1971/72 season.
Shannon Trophy – From 1893
From inception to 1972 matches in this competition have been played over 12, 16 or 20 boards. This is the premium competition of the SCCU and it was called “The Championship of Southern Counties” or simply the Championship. Hampshire played from 1893 until they left the SCCU and joined the WECU in 1972.
Hampshire have won the competition twice, once in 1947/1948 and again in 1969/1970 for which I have written an article.
Amboyna Shield – From 1924
Matches in this competition are played over 50 boards. The games between boards 1 and 20 and/or boards 1 to 50 could contribute to the Shannon Championship (and 100 board Ebony, although Hampshire never entered that competition). From 1970 the number reduced to 25 boards and further changes have taken place post Hampshire being a part of this competition.
Hampshire won the Amboyna Shield just the once in the 1969/70 season.
Montague Jones Trophy – From 1924
Matches have been played over 12, 16 or 20 boards. These matches influence the Shannon Championship and the Stevenson Trophy. The key feature until 1955 was that the “five” metropolitan counties could not participate in this competition. In 1972 the number of boards were fixed at 20 when it became and remains the 2nd team championship. Again, this change was after Hampshire had stopped competing in the SCCU.
As this competition was not for the larger SCCU counties, Hampshire had more success. winning 12 times, first in 1927/28 and lastly in 1969/70 (which was the last of a Hatrick of Hampshire wins)
Stevenson Trophy – 1932 to 1972 (1999 to date)
Matches have been played over 12, 16 or 20 boards. The key feature of this competition was that metropolitan counties were exempted from participating.
Hampshire won this just the once in 1963/64.
Competiton winners can be found on the SCCU website where I have obtained some of these details.
West of England Chess Union (WECU)
Hampshire joined the West of England Chess Union (WECU) in the 1972/73 season and played until the 2014/15 season (we missed the 1979/80 season). Hampshire also played in the online only season from 2020/21. We are still part of the WECU, and it is hoped that if someone came forward to offer to be match captain we would enter. This could be for either the A or the B team.
The county match programme consists of two Divisions. Teams in Division 1 compete for the Harold Meek Cup (the Counties Championship). Teams in Division 2 compete for the Wayling Cup. Each County may enter one team in Division 1 and/or one team in Division 2. If a County enters two teams, its first team shall play in Division 1 and its second team shall play in Division 2.
Harold Meek
The A team trophy, normally won by Devon or Gloucestershire although Hampshire have also won a number of times. I have confirmed that Hampshire won in the following seasons as per old copies of the Westward Ho! magazines. 1975/75, 1981/82, 1983/84, 1989/90, 1992/93 and 1995/96.
I don’t have all the copies and there will be other times when Hampshire won the title. I will look to identify these in the future.
Wayling Cup
The B team trophy which Devon have been very dominant of. As per the Harold Meek I will look to identify when Hampshire won this, we beat Devon a number of times in the 1980’s and 1990’s and these would be likely candidate years. As per the Keveral website Devon had won the Wayling cup for the 18th consecutive year in 2016! I think they have continued to win this since this time as well, although currently only Devon and Cornwall enter this.
Chiltern League
Hampshire joined the Chiltern League in the 2000/01 season and continue to play in this today. We originally entered to give more players the opportunity to play County Chess, but over time this did affect our participation in the WECU and led to us not entering a team after the 2014/15 season.
Currently this is a competition between four Counties, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire. These were counties which Hampshire also played against in the SCCU, but the majority of these now concentrate on the Chiltern League for their County Chess experience. The structure of the league has changed over time, with an Open, U200, U180, U170, U160, U150, U125 and a junior team at certain times. Some of these have been run at the same time e.g., 2010/11 had 20 board U200, 16 board U150 and 12 board U125 teams!
Currently there is just a double round Open team competition.
November 2022
County Champions
Hampshire have been County Champions a number of times, this was sometimes in the main Open championship and sometimes in the graded sections. In addition, they have been SCCU, WECU and Chiltern League champions. Below is a summary of what I understand to be their successes, but I do not have all the results of the WECU or the Chiltern League. Therefore, I have only set them as champions when this has been indicated by the Westward Ho! magazines, Chiltern League website or they won all their matches in the season. If I identify more successes I will update accordingly.
With the Match Captain receiving the trophy for the 2022 / 2023 season this has had the seasons which Hampshire have won the Open (or top) section and the table below has been updated with some of the missing wins. June 2023.
The ECF have an archive of County Champions.
| Season | Competition |
|---|---|
| 1927 – 1928 | Montague Jones |
| 1929 – 1930 | Montague Jones |
| 1931 – 1932 | Montague Jones |
| 1932 – 1933 | Montague Jones |
| 1937 – 1938 | Montague Jones |
| 1947 – 1948 | Montague Jones |
| 1947 – 1948 | SCCU Champions (Shannon) |
| 1952 – 1953 | Montague Jones |
| 1955 – 1956 | Harold Meek Trophy |
| 1955 – 1956 | National Correspondence Champions |
| 1956 – 1957 | Harold Meek Trophy |
| 1957 – 1958 | Montague Jones |
| 1963 – 1964 | Stevenson |
| 1967 – 1968 | Montague Jones |
| 1968 – 1969 | Montague Jones |
| 1969 – 1970 | Montague Jones |
| 1969 – 1970 | SCCU Champions (Shannon)SCCU Champions (Shannon) |
| 1975 – 1976 | Harold Meek Trophy |
| 1981 – 1982 | Harold Meek Trophy |
| 1982 – 1983 | Under 18 Champions |
| 1983 – 1984 | Harold Meek Trophy |
| 1983 – 1984 | National Under 18 Champions |
| 1984 – 1985 | National Under 18 Girls Champions |
| 1988 – 1989 | National Under 18 Girls Champions |
| 1992 – 1993 | Harold Meek Trophy |
| 1993 – 1994 | National U175 Champions |
| 1995 – 1996 | Harold Meek Trophy |
| 1997 – 1998 | National Under 18 Champions |
| 1997 – 1998 | Sinclair |
| 2001 – 2002 | Chiltern League U125 |
| 2001 – 2002 | Chiltern League U170 |
| 2002 – 2003 | Chiltern League U125 |
| 2002 – 2003 | Chiltern League U170 |
| 2004 – 2005 | Chiltern League U170 |
| 2009 – 2010 | National U140 Champions |
| 2009 – 2010 | Chiltern League U200 |
| 2009 – 2010 | Chiltern League U150 |
| 2010 – 2011 | National U140 Champions |
| 2011 – 2012 | Chiltern League U150 |
| 2012 – 2013 | Chiltern League Open |
| 2012 – 2013 | Chiltern League U150 |
| 2013 – 2014 | National U140 Champions |
| 2013 – 2014 | Chiltern League U150 |
| 2022 – 2023 | Chiltern League Open |
