Wallasey Chess Club
A Very Brief History
No definitive history of Wallasey Chess Club has ever been written. However, several current members are interested enough to have done some research in recent years, although we acknowledge that there is a great deal more work to do. This is just a very brief summary of our findings thus far.
The earliest record found to date of an organisation called Wallasey Chess Club dated from 1872, when the records of Liverpool Chess Club note that we “appeared on the scene” and issued a challenge to the “Knight players” of their club, which was played on 11 May that year. We lost 9½-11½. By October of that year, Wallasey Chess Club was installed at the Queen’s Arms in Liscard and boasted a membership of 53. In December, the famous Joseph Henry Blackburne – one of the world’s strongest players at that time – gave a simultaneous blindfold exhibition.
On 31 December 1874, a new communal building was opened on Manor Road with great ceremony. The building still stands today, as the “Monkey House” children’s play facility, but was far grander in its Victorian beginnings. A number of organisations were based there, with Wallasey Chess Club among them, from early January 1875. Blackburne again gave a blindfold simul.
No further record of the club has been found for a number of decades and it may be that the club ceased to exist for several decades.
The next evidence of its existence is in the Championship trophy, which is still awarded to the winner of the internal league today. It is inscribed simply “Wallasey Chess Club 1918” and was first awarded in 1919, presumably for the 1918/19 season. It is not known who presented it or funded it, but it is believed that the club has existed continuously ever since that time.
The 1920s was a period of some success for the club, winning the Liverpool & District Chess League in 1922, 1929 and 1930. At that time, the club was based at Wallasey Central Library on Earleston Road, presumably in what is now their exhibition and communal space upstairs.
The internal club championship trophy bears no names in the years 1930-38. In his incoming speech on election as club President in 1953 by Newman Clissold stated that the club’s “inception” was in 1937 with 14 members, so it may be that the club was dormant for much of the 1930s. However, the Championship trophy had obviously been retained and provided some form of continuity, being awarded again in 1939.
The Second World War put over-the-board chess on hold, with articles in the Wallasey News from 1946 revealing that the club resumed activities at the end of September 1945, at which time it was based at Ryecroft Hall, a building on the corner of Seaview Road and Burns Avenue which is no longer standing. It seems the club championship was not contested in the first season after resumption, as the trophy was not awarded again until 1947 (for the 1946/47 season).
The earliest known written records generated by the club are in the form of a visitors/suggestions book dating from 1946 and “Minute Book No 2”, which commences in September 1947. We do not know the current whereabouts of “Minute Book No 1”, or even whether it survived the war.
In August 1946, the club moved a little further down Seaview Road to the hall of St Thomas’s Church and, after that, to Wallasey Grange in August 1948. The Grange still exists today, at the junction of Grove Road and Sea Road, albeit as a tea room and offices.
Numbers grew steadily in the 1950s and the membership at that time largely comprised middle-aged businessmen and talented youngsters, such as future national champion, Vic Knox. The club moved to the Montpellier Hotel on Albion Street in New Brighton in February 1962, then on to Quarry Mount School in January 1965.
This era was the height of the club’s playing strength, so much so that there was a suggestion Wallasey was “England’s strongest team” in 1963. We won the Liverpool & District League an incredible six consecutive seasons from 1963-68, and the Wirral League in 1967 and 1970.
In 1964, against a background of unease about the attitude of certain other clubs in the Liverpool League to Wallasey’s period of dominance, the officers of our club developed and pursued the idea of founding an alternative league. After consultation with five other local clubs, the Wirral Chess League was born, with the first fixtures taking place in the 1964/65 season. Our B team won the league in that year.
In September 1968, the club returned to the Grange for a second stint. The club benefited from the worldwide explosion of interest in chess following the Fischer-Spassky World Championship match of 1972, with membership possibly reaching as high as 100.
The internal league expanded to three divisions and new annual one-night tournaments were introduced, such as the Lightning and the Blitz, which are still contested today.
Wallasey won the Wirral League in four consecutive seasons in 1973-76 and Liverpool League again in 1975 and 1976 in a renewed period of local dominance. At this time, social events such as club dinner dances were also organised. One annual event which ran for several years was a public display of blitz chess in shop windows in Wallasey, which always drew a crowd!
In 1977, the officers of the club believed – incorrectly – that it was their centenary year and appropriate celebrations were held.
In September of that year, the club moved to the hall of Trinity Methodist Church on Manor Road, which has since been demolished to make way for housing. This is remembered by our longest-standing members today as being a particularly cold venue, no matter what the weather outside!
Wallasey won the Wirral League for three further consecutive seasons in 1979-81 before a long lean spell.
In March 1983, the club found a new home at New Brighton Cricket & Bowling Club on Rake Lane, where it remained for nearly 20 years.
The 1990s was a period of renewal for the club, beginning with a successful return to the Liverpool League (by now renamed Merseyside Chess Association), which we had left for a short period. In 1992, in our first season back, the only team we entered won Division 4. Wallasey also dominated the Wirral League for much of the decade, winning the title in no fewer than nine of the 11 seasons between 1991-2001.
In 2001, Wallasey was awarded the Club of the Year title by the (then) British Chess Federation.
The club’s third team won the Wirral League in 2003 and 2004 and the first team once again in 2006.
In the summer of 2010, the club moved to our current venue on the first floor of Wallasey Conservative Club. This excellent function room has a reputation as one of the finest venues for chess on Merseyside.
The Covid pandemic of 2020-21 forced a temporary halt to over-the-board chess, but some online tournaments were arranged and the club re-opened for in-person play in September 2021. As the world began turning once more, the club again experienced a huge influx of new members, attracted by an impressive new club website, which continues to showcase our highly structured internal competitions and the many teams we enter in both the Merseyside and Wirral chess leagues.
Sadly, the pandemic hastened the demise or decline of several other local clubs, many of whose members have joined our ranks, while a deliberate attempt to increase our junior membership in 2023 has produced a thriving crop of youngsters at the club once again.
No doubt as a result of our renewed growth, Wallasey won the Wirral League again in 2023, for the first time in 17 years.
Wallasey Chess Club stands today as one of the oldest and most respected chess clubs on Merseyside and is pleased to welcome new members of all ages and abilities.
Saul Marks
September 2024