Fisherwick Chess Club

In 1901 Fisherwick Presbyterian Church moved to its present site on the Malone Road. So this year it has been celebrating the centenary of its move. One of the ways in which the church celebrated was to stage an exhibition of the history of the church. Alex Beckett, the secretary/treasurer of Fisherwick Chess Club, which meets in one of the church halls was invited to contribute to the exhibition with a display about the chess club. The following is an edited version of the material prepared for that display.

Originally the Club was known as 37th O.B. - presumably Fisherwick Church has a Scout or B.B. troop numbered 37. When the Chess Club was originally formed is uncertain, but they were founder members of the Belfast Junior Chess League. The Belfast News-Letter for 1st November 1934 reports on the first annual general meeting of the BJCL, held in the Robertson Room, Fisherwick Church and that a meeting of club secretaries would meet on the 6th to arrange fixtures for the BJCL's first season's. There were 5 teams:- 37th O.B., Belfast Deaf, CIYMS, QUB and Hilden, only one of which - CIYMS - at that time had a senior team.

I found this reminiscence by a Mr Ward of Newtownabbey, given by William Collins in the Belfast Telegraph for 3rd September 1983:

I checked the 1938/39 season and Mr Ward was playing for 37th O.B. The change of name to Fisherwick seems to have occurred circa 1950. According to records I have checked they were still called 37th O.B. in the 1947/48 season but were Fisherwick by 1952/53. Further research may find the exact date the name changed. Of course, both names may have been commonly used for a period.

It would appear that 37th O.B/Fisherwick has played in team competitions virtually every year since the formation of the BJCL. The BJCL itself became Division 2 of the UCU Belfast and District Leagues in the 1944/45 season.

Fisherwick seems to have been a small and not particularly successful (in terms of winning trophies) club until the mid-1960s. The first trophy I have traced them winning is the 1964/65 Division 2. They repeated this feat in seasons 1966/67 and 1969/70. The first time I could find them playing in Division 1 was 1968/69, though they might have been in it a short time before then. They first won the Division 1 title in the 1970/71 season.

The club had been getting much stronger, both in standard of play and number of members, in the second half of the 1960s. This was mainly due to the influx of Methody players -no doubt due to the connection with Brian Thorpe, master in charge of chess there, who was a member of Fisherwick. The demise of the city centre Belfast and CIYMS clubs, due to the Troubles, circa 1970, brought even more players from all over the city to Fisherwick. In the 1970s Fisherwick was the dominant club in the Belfast area, but with the revival of CIYMS and other clubs emerging in the late 1970s competition got stiffer. However Fisherwick has remained one of the top clubs in Ulster since the initial breakthrough in the late 1960s. In all, Fisherwick has won the Division 1 title 11 times and the Knockout Cup on 5 occasions. It might even have won more Division 1 titles, were it not for its practice of entering more than one team in Division 1 from the early 1970s until quite recently.

I began to play chess in a Chess Club when the gentleman Harry H. Nelson, who had taught me the rudiments of the game, thought I had reached a sufficient standard and suggested that I come to the Belfast Chess Club where he played. Belfast was an old-established club having begun in 1840 - the first chess club in Ireland.

I think 1959 or 1960 was my first year at Belfast who played their chess every Monday evening in Corridor Room No. 1 in the Assembly Buildings in Fisherwick Place. It was there that I met Mr. Anderson who lived on the Antrim Road. I believe he was an elder in Rosemary Presbyterian Church. He invited me to visit the Fisherwick Chess Club. I joined Fisherwick although my first loyalty was to the Belfast club for whose "B" team I played in the Chess League. At that time players at Fisherwick included W. G. Acheson, Tom Chase, H. J. Coburn, D. D. Forson, A. Irvine, S. N. Logan, J. A. Paul, E. R. Jones, G. Ritchie, J. T. M. Hogg, F. E. Wallace, a Mr. Bevan and K. Watson. At that time Noel Logan organised chess at Fisherwick. I think H. J. Coburn and D. D. Forson were church elders. Also a member was B. L. Thorpe, a mathematics teacher at Methody, who also had charge of the college chess team. This was an important link as Brian Thorpe began to organise Schools' chess throughout Ulster and in future years many strong schoolboy players would come to play chess in the Fisherwick Club. When I married in 1964 I did not have as much time for chess as formerly. However I still maintained an interest although for a number of years I did not belong to a club.

An important year for Fisherwick was 1971. It was unsafe to take cars into the city centre because of the troubled situation. The long established Belfast Chess Club ceased to function and CIYMS moved from their room in Clarence Place Hall to Belmont. St Paul's Chess Club on the Falls Road also ceased activities. Although diminished, chess continued during the troubled seventies and Fisherwick gained from the demise of the city centre clubs.

Most important of these "migrating" players was Arthur Pinkerton, who for many years organised chess at Fisherwick and was a great and enthusiastic coach for junior players. So from the seventies onwards Fisherwick became one of the strongest chess clubs in Ulster.

In 1980 my youngest son was showing an interest in chess. So I took Roger to Fisherwick where he developed his game, being helped greatly by the excellent tutelage of Arthur Pinkerton. In 1981 he entered the Fisherwick Tournament for the first time to gain experience of playing tournament chess but it was to be hard-earned experience for Roger lost all nine games. He persevered and in 1982 won a grading prize in the Fisherwick tournament and also shared the Irish National Schools' Minor Championship with John Joyce of Leinster.

The "golden age" of Fisherwick chess was probably the seventies when the Belfast and District League title was won six times. One all-Ireland Club Championship was also won in the seventies. In the eighties Fisherwick won the KO Cup for four consecutive years - 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989. The all-Ireland Club Championship was also won in 1988.

In the nineties the Belfast and District Division 1 title was won in 1995 and again in 1996. Also Fisherwick were joint winners of this title in 1990 and again in 1992. The KO cup and another All-Ireland Club Championship were won in 1994.

One remembers the players who have played for the Fisherwick Club and who have gone on to represent Ireland at full international level in various Chess Olympiads - John Moles, Keith Allen, Roger Beckett and Brian Kelly. [I seem to remember that Tom Clarke also played for Fisherwick in the early part of his career - DMcA.] One also recalls the numerous schoolboys and schoolgirls who have represented their country at international level in the Glorney and Faber Cup International Competitions - John Moles, Paul Hadden, Keith Allen, Damien Artt, Diarmuid Simpson, William Collins, John Nicholson, Robert Frew, Kieran Greer, David Wilson, John Cairns, Roger Beckett, Helen Gore and Emma Greer. Brian Kelly has progressed to further heights by gaining the title of International master.

Kieran Greer and John Cairns still play in our "A" team in Division 1 of the Belfast and District League. The others have scattered throughout the U. K. and overseas. Some, perhaps, have given up chess but I hope the majority are still playing this game of perpetual, and often perplexing, decisions.