My road to Chess Glory: Part 5: Hollow Victories.
During the summer of 2012, I found myself playing in the Wernick cup again after just 1 campaign in the Felce cup 2 years before. (I was too unwell to play at all in the summer of 2011) I won my section comfortably, dropping just a half-point along the way with 3 wins and a draw which meant that I qualified for the 4-player, 3- game final of the tournament in the autumn. I had 2 wins and 1 loss in the final, losing only to the eventual champion. During that time, I also started playing as a member of Coulsdon Chess Fellowship. (CCF)
On the 13th of September 2012, South Norwood had their Annual General Meeting. (AGM) which I had to attend to as a captain of the Stoneleigh trophy. I was also technically a team captain of the Ellary Williams Memorial Trophy team at that point but the competition did not run in the previous season.
I actually went into the meeting with a report on a small piece of paper. After I mentioned the Stoneleigh Trophy team's record of 2 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses, I told the club at the AGM that I had felt a lot of scrutiny from the vice-president of the club who also happened to be the inter-club tournaments director. He responded to the summary of my report in a way that would have a strong emotional impact on me throughout the 2012/13 season. There was one quote he made that still remains in my memory to this day. He said "You don't pick your mates". I found this statement very upsetting because throughout my whole life, I have always struggled to make friends and have lived a predominantly lonely existence. He also said "As a captain I have won over 30 team titles. If it did it your way, I wouldn't even have 5". It was clear that he was not in favour of me being captain of the team. Another reason why I found those words so upsetting is that like in the previous season, I felt a lot of excruciating pressure to include the vice-captain in my team. A feeling that would lead to a small series of anxiety attacks. In fact, the humiliation of that night would continue as he also said things about me like "With all due respect, he hasn't set the world alight" and then another demoralising quote. "Take Richard's picture down (from the official club website) and replace it with a YouTube video of Yang-Fan Zhou. (A new member of the club at the time who was already a grand-master.)
I remember leaving that AGM feeling hurt and deflated my the vice-president's comments. I momentary thought about leaving the club at that point but I also thought that I am not going to give up on the chance of winning a team title as a captain, especially as I had a clear game plan to win the Stoneleigh Trophy so I decided to brave the season and hope that things would go my way. That said throughout the season, I felt obliged to have the vice-president in all of my matches.
Our first Stoneleigh match was away to Streatham. Around this time, I announced that I wanted to take a one-season break from playing for my county because of persistant illnesses. After mentioning the rules and dynamics of the competition, the vice-president decided to humiliate me again by saying that I wouldn't play in his county team but I still select him for my Stoneleigh team. He made me sound like I could not be bothered to play for his county team when in reality, I was struggling with allergic rhinitis and migraine headaches.
Before each Stoneleigh match, the two team captains try to work out the correct target scores for both teams. The target scores are based on the differences in combined grades between the two teams. In the end, Streatham needed 7 and a half game points just for a draw and all 8 to win the match while my South Norwood team only needed a half-point to draw the match and just 1 to win.
In the first half of the match, we all lost our games on all of the boards. I remember missing a tactic from my opponent in my first game with the white pieces. However, it was in the second half of the match (when we play with reversed colours) I won my game with Black. My opponent played a rather unorthodox opening, but I found a way to get into a good position and eventually out played him in the endgame. That was the full-point that won us the match.
Later that week, I would give an e-mail to various members of the club about how I felt about my treatment as a captain of the Ellary Williams Memorial Trophy team as well as the Stoneleigh team titled "Asking for Respect". In the e-mail, I mentioned that I had a series of illnesses and difficult events that I had in the 2 previous years as well as the fact that I had felt very humiliated as a captain.
A month later, we would have our second Stoneleigh match when our visiting opposition came with a team that had a combined grade that was over the 700 point limit. The match commenced as normal, however, the visitors were eventually penalised accordingly. Interestingly however, we would have won the match anyway as one of my teammates beat a player graded over 200 points in one of his two games while our top board also scored a victory. After that match, the vice-president complained about the content of the e-mail mentioned above saying that I insulted him. I replied almost tearfully by saying that he said things to me in the AGM that I would have never said to him. He eventually apologised.
After that, my season as a captain went smoothly. In fact, the season went perfectly as on Monday 21st January 2013, we won the Stoneleigh trophy after winning an away match at Guildford with a match to spare with a perfect record of 5 wins from 5 matches. My Stoneleigh formula was a flying success. I cannot even start to explain how proud I was for myself, the team and the entire club. It was quite frankly one of the most satisfying moments of my chess career. On Thursday 21st March 2013, My Ellary Williams Memorial Trophy team would also win their title with a perfect record of 5 out of 5 with a match to spare after a home win against the same club.
You would think that with all of that success, my chess life would be very enjoyable from here on. However, on the following Sunday evening, I would see an e-mail from somebody saying that a match which I was due to play in for someone else's team was postponed because there were certain people who would be playing in that match who wanted to watch a football match. It was the World Cup qualifier, England vs Macedonia. I was absolutely outraged by this decision. The idea of a chess team-match being postponed because other people wanted to go to Wembely Stadium or watch the game on T.V. was to me a total disgrace. I phoned the inter-club tournaments director who also happened to be our vice-president to question the decision. The reaction that I got from him was equally shocking. After mentioning that both captains agreed to the postponement of the match, he went on to say "it has nothing to do with you" "What do you mean it has nothing to do with me?" I angrily replied. After further angry exchanges, he hung up the phone on me. I was so appalled by both the postponement and the phone call that I decided to cancel the remaining matches of both my teams' schedules out of protest against the postponement . I doubt that any football match is ever postponed for a chess event of any description so why should a chess event be postponed because of football ? I just don't think it is fair .
Although the final Ellary Williams match remained cancelled, the Final Stoneleigh match still happened with the inter-club tournaments director taking charge of the team. I twice attempted to reason with him but in the end, it was clear that he was just one of those people who seem to think that they are in the right all the time and was simply unreasonable. In the intervening time, I also suffered an asthma attack. No doubt that the stress and emotional pain would have played some part in my admission to hospital back then in what was an incredibly dramatic and traumatic period for me as a tournament chess player.
