While idly searching on the internet, I came across this picture above of chess being played on nearby Clapham Common.
According to the caption, these are elderly members of the Clapham Common Open Air Chess and Draughts Club, circa 1920.
The club apparently met regularly during the afternoons to play on the common, which adjoins Battersea.
Clapham Common were also London League division one champions in 1947 and 1948.
They stopped playing competitive matches sometime later but still had regular off-hand games on summer afternoons.
Joe Skielnik remembers GM John Nunn giving a simul in the open air in the 1980s and Emil Todorow was a regular there until it eventually folded.
In this picture though, chess back the 1920s seems just as elderly as it is now.
But the immediate question is, could some of these have been members of Battersea also?
