The perennial question came up in our AGM the other night about whether we should re-enter the Surrey Chess League, organised by the Surrey County Chess Association.
As usual, the issue of distance seemed to pre-occupy our minds and we decided against it, mainly due to the fear of being sent to play somewhere like Redhill or, shudder, Guildford. Battersea is, after all, the northernmost club affiliated to the SCCA and quite out on a limb.
But we did decide to apply to field a team in the Alexander Cup. This is the knockout competition which started in 1922/23. It is not, as I was unreliably informed, named after the great British chess champion and Bletchley codebreaker C.H.O’D Alexander, played by Matthew Goode in The Imitation Game.
The trophy was in fact in memory of another earlier Alexander, believed to be F. F. L. Alexander, who is mentioned in our club history and was Battersea treasurer from 1919, Surrey champion in 1924 and Surrey treasurer from 1931 to 1938.
Battersea first won the Alexander Cup in 1927 and went on to pick it up a further six times, the last being in 1953. Wimbledon hold the record for wins in this competition, having scooped it 12 times.
We’re Surrey we left
Our last involvement in the Surrey structure was in this competition in 2016, and I seem to remember we lost 4.5 – 5.5 to a strong Wimbledon side in the first round and that was the end of that. At the following AGM, we decided to save £40 and withdraw.
But our history in the SCCA tournaments is rich and glorious. I think I’m right in saying, Battersea has won the most important, the Surrey Trophy, 19 times – the record for a single club. Streatham and Brixton CC may dispute that, given that as “Streatham” and “Brixton” and then later after they merged as “Streatham and Brixton” they can claim 23 wins, but we think that doesn’t count…
So, for newer members (and myself) who are perhaps not aware of Battersea’s history in the various SCCA competitions, I thought I would go over our past involvement.
Our first golden age
Including all competitions, Battersea has won a total of 35 Surrey Chess League team titles stretching back to 1895 when we first won the Surrey Trophy to be crowned county champions.
Battersea then won it again five times in six years in 1900, 1901, 1902, 1904 and 1905 in what appears to have been something of a golden age for the club.
It wasn’t until 1916 – in the middle of WW1 – that Battersea won it again. The league was then suspended for three years before resuming in 1919, after which Brixton won it five times in a row.
The roaring 20s and 30s
Battersea hit back though with a second golden age winning eight titles in 10 years in the inter-war years including four in a row between 1926 and 1929.
The club then had a 9th inter-war win in 1939 before the outbreak of WW2 and league was again suspended.
Curiously, having won the league before it was suspended for WW1 , around the time conscription was brought in, then the same thing happened before the outbreak of WW2. Add to that the fact that Battersea also won the London League the same year meaning the club went into WW2 as champions of Surrey and London.
A harbinger of war?
So while Spurs win the cup when the year ends in one, Battersea winning the league – it seems – is the historical harbinger of world war. Maybe we shouldn’t push Wood Green so hard next year…
During WW2 the club continued to meet – it was one of the few that carried on through both wars – and even hosted two friendly county matches between Surrey and Kent and Surrey and Middlesex in August 1943 at its venue, The Railway Tavern in Battersea Rise (now the Hawkins Forge).
An interesting side note on this is that playing on board 1 in the Surrey v Kent match was the legendary first women’s world champion Vera Menchik.
Menchik lived just around the corner in 47 Gauden Road, where she moved after getting married. On 27 June 1944 she, her sister Olga, and their mother were killed in a V1 flying bomb attack which destroyed their home.
Menchik was cremated at the Streatham Park Crematorium on 4 July 1944, along with her sister and mother.
Battersea’s greatest year
However, going back to Battersea’s triumphs it seems 1955 was the greatest year for the club in the Surrey Chess League and it’s been mostly downhill from then.
In 1955 the club was crowned county champions by winning the Surrey Trophy, the second team also won the Beaumont Cup (effectively the second tier) and a Battersea 3 team won the Minor Trophy. A clean sweep.
That year was also, unfortunately, the last time Battersea won the top prize. The last time any Battersea team won a trophy in the Surrey structure was in 1985 when the first team (or more probably the only team) won the Ellam Trophy.
Surrey Chess League: a return?
Bill Drennan, who is still a member of the club, said: “When I was relatively new to the club in the early 1990s I captained Battersea to promotion from the Ellam Trophy (3rd Division) to the Beaumont Cup (2nd Division) twice in three seasons, also to a relegation in the season in between.
“I assume we finished 2nd on both occasions we were promoted – two teams went up. We stayed for many seasons in the Beaumont Cup after the second promotion, about twenty years I think, until we left the Surrey League.”
The reason we left was the difficulty of getting teams together for away matches.
However, next year we’ll make the effort for the Alexander Cup at least and hopefully bring home a first Surrey title for 35 years.
