Hampshire County Matches 1926 / 27 - Hampshire Chess History

Only the two over the board matches played this season. Hampshire were originally planned to play Dorset twice, but Dorset had issues and were unable to play the second match.

Picture from Olimpbase of Sir George Thomas performance from the 1st Olympiad which was held in London in July 1927.

Hampshire v Dorset 22 Oct 1926
Hampshire v Hertfordshire 12 Feb 1927
Summary
Acknowledgements and Sources

For the record of Hampshire County matches, and links to any articles I have written, the table on the Hampshire County Chess Matches page will detail these. The Hampshire County Chess History page summaries the leagues Hampshire have played in, and the successes Hampshire have achieved. Both of these are available from the menu at the top of the site as well.

Hampshire 13 – Dorset 3 – Oct 23 1926 – Bournemouth

Hampshire had another comfortable 13 – 3 win against Dorset, although the top board was a default win due to EL Raymond being unwell.

**Hampshire vs Dorset Oct 1926 Hampshire Advertiser**

As per the previous two years a second match was due to be played against Dorset in November but as reported in the Portsmouth Evening News this was not played, with Dorset withdrawing from the competition.

**Dorset Match Nov 1926 Portsmouth Evening News**

In fact, things turned out even worse for Dorset and their Association suspended all activities in April 1927, due to inactivity. With no actual chess clubs in Dorset at this time, it was proving challenging to field a team in their county matches. But looking forward this position was resolved as Hampshire would play a stronger Dorset County team in the 1928/29 season. This was a friendly match, but the following year Dorset were back in the Montague Jones Cup.

Too many Hampshire winners in the match to mention, but individual results are below.

Board	Hampshire	Result	Dorset	Result
1	JH Blake	1	EL Raymond (def)	0
2	FJH Elwell	1	WH Curtis	0
3	FA Joyce	1	Capt RF Bowles	0
4	HD Lloyd	1	DH Napper	0
5	WJ Fry	1	Capt PH di Marco	0
6	CT Bennett	½	HG Barnes	½
7	HA Way	1	Dr BE Sendermore	0
8	AB Coe	1	Revd WS Clarke	0
9	JS West	1	WT Wilkinson	0
10	E Clayton	1	AF Thomas	0
11	ACE Hughes	0	P Ward	1
12	HHR Northover	1	B Griffin	0
13	Dr GF Trubridge	½	WL Long	½
14	AR Cooner	1	WJ Mitchener	0
15	EG Parsons	0	CA Wermen	1
16	EF Usborne	1	Revd A Metcalfe	0
	Total	13	Total	3

Hampshire 8 – Hertfordshire 8 – Feb 12th 1927 – London

Hampshire met Herefordshire for the first time in the KO Semi Final stage of the Montague Jones Cup in February 1927. Herts had come through as the winners of their group stage which also had Berkshire and Bedfordshire. This would prove to be a tough match, with the final result being and eight all tie.

Hertfordshire would go through on tie-break which was the elimination of the bottom board.

Hants - Herts Feb 1927 BCM — **Hants – Herts Feb 1927 BCM**

Hampshire winners were AB Coe, GF Troubridge, LC Wheatham and FL Taylor. Of note was GSA Wheatcroft on board 3, who played in the 1926 British Chess Championship.

This was the first county game for FL Taylor, who would go on to have a great county record. But we have Mr Taylor to thank for producing his record of Hampshire Chess History (all 187 pages) which has been a treasure trove for myself, and others for Chess activities up to 1944.

Board	Hampshire	Result	Hertfordshire	Result
1	JH Blake	0	GPA Richards	1
2	FJH Elwell	½	Sir E Wigram	½
3	FN Braund	0	GSA Wheatcroft	1
4	WJ Fry	½	AG Fellows	½
5	AB Coe	1	LS Penrose	0
6	HA Way	½	J Burgess	½
7	CT Bennett	0	GT Womack	1
8	JS West	½	EJ Fairchild	½
9	FG Binning	0	P Clarkson	1
10	AH Yerbury	½	W Hatton-Ward	½
11	Dr GF Trubridge	½	AE Cozens	½
12	E Clayton	1	EG Attenborough	0
13	AJ Duffy	½	GE Marler	½
14	LC Whetham	1	LS Bush	0
15	GC Ives	½	CK Trotter	½
16	FL Taylor	1	DC Moody	0
	Total	8	Total	8

Hertfordshire were meant to play Devon in the final of the Montague Jones Cup, but Devon were unable to field a team who would travel to Salisbury and therefore Hertfordshire won by default. Middlesex won the SCCU Championship, so I presume Hertfordshire lost to them in this final? Middlesex also won the Amboyna and Ebony competitions this season as well.

Summary

Only the two OTB County matches this season, but next year would have much more as Hampshire would move further than the KO stages. With Dorset also withdrawing from County Chess Hampshire would move to a different region, which meant more competitive matches at the league stage.

In Correspondence matches Hampshire played in the National County Championship and finished with a positive score. Somerset were the winners of this competition.

Hampshire also played a match against the Leeds and District area losing 29½ – 31½. The individual results of the Hampshire players is below, although the newspaper result has this as 29 – 31. FN Braund was on board 1 ahead of FJ Elwell and Wilf Pratten was already on board 10 despite only being approx. 18 years old.

1926 27 Corr Match Hampshire Advertiser - 15 Oct 1927 — **1926 27 Corr Match Hampshire Advertiser – 15 Oct 1927**

Joseph Blake played in the 1926, British Chess Championship finishing in shared 3rd place. Frederick Yates dominated the Championships just losing and drawing once. This was Blake’s last British Championship, and must have been enjoyable to finish with a great performance.

1926 British Chess Championship - Source Britbase — **1926 British Chess Championship – Source Britbase**

With only the one draw from his 11 games Blake showed fighting spirit. A nice finish in his game against old rival Harold Saunders.

One other local player in the championship was FA Joyce (shared 4th in the First Class tournament) who played for the IOW (although not sure if this was the case at this time). I don’t think H Parsons was HL Parsons, as down as Bristol.

The Hampsh ire Trop hy in the 1926/27 season was won by Old Tauntonians and they also won the Shield. Players in their Hampshire League team included WJ Fry, GF Trubridge and HL Parsons who were regular county players. The Hampshire Trophy seems to have been run as a league rather than a KO, as the University College (Old Tauntonians) were stated as winners for beating YMCA in the League Championships.

**Hampshire Trophy 1926 1927 Hampshire Advertiser**

The 38th Hampshire AGM had details on Sir GA Thomas successes in the year, including his performance in the International Teams Event in July 1927. This is what would later be known as the 1st Chess Olympiad. Sir GA Thomas shared the 1st and 2nd best performance with his 9 wins and 6 draws. Britain (or the British Empire) finished in 3nd place, behind Hungary and Denmark (no Russia in competition).

1st Olympiad 1927 Best Performance - Source Olimpbase — **1st Olympiad 1927 Best Performance – Source Olimpbase**

I don’t think there were any changes to the Officers for the 1927/28 season, although I have only located the pre meeting notes. This concentrated on Sir G A Thomas. Old Tauntoninan’s, Correspondence chess, Andover AGM and Southampton Chess Club.