Cumnor Chess Club

 
The Club was established in October 2001. In August 1999 I moved to Oxford from London. Unaware of any chess clubs in Oxford I decided to start one. Had I'd been aware of all the chess clubs in and around Oxford at that time, I most probably would not have bothered starting up a club from scratch. However, around May 2001 I placed an advert in Botley Post Office and another in Cumnor Newsagents, in order to see if there was any local interest to start a chess club. I received four calls in as many months. As there were no further enquiries I decided to get the club up and running. I searched for a suitable local venue for the club to meet, and secured an evening every Thursday at the Cumnor Old School. I purchased six chess sets and boards and the five of us met for the first time on 11th October 2001. The only founder members that are still regular players at the club are Ann Willan and myself, the other three drifted away after a time. The average attendance in our first nine weeks was four per evening. But then, soon after, the club started to take on new members and in our first year we averaged 7.8 players per evening.  

The club sees many faces come and go, but over time a new player sticks with the club and becomes a permanent member.

Around early 2004 I discovered Cowley Chess Club, I can't remember how this happened, but I managed to contact Lester Millan, Cowleys Captain, and arranged a friendly match between our clubs, which we played at Cumnor Old School on 29th April 2004. We lost the match 1.5 - 4.5. Lester mentioned that we might consider joining the ODCL league, but as the club was far too small for such a commitment, I did not investigate this further. I used to run a chess club in London in 1990, and discovered then, the many problems that can ensue if you have a small club membership playing in a league.

In the spring of 2006 I was in Grove, near Wantage. I popped into a green grocers there, and spotted a local publication, 'What's On In Wantage', of which I took a copy. Flicking through it I noticed there was a Chess Club in Wantage that meets every Tuesday evening. I called the contact name in the ad, Ray Cordon, and arranged to see him at one of their club evenings. We arranged an 8 board friendly match, which we played on 25th May 2006 at Cumnor. We lost 3.5 - 4.5. Like Lester, Ray also suggested we join the ODCL league. At first I was still reluctant to do so, even though our permanent membership had increased since our friendly match against Cowley in 2004. I still considered our numbers to be borderline to comit to joining a league. However, I put the idea of joining the league to the Cumnor players, of which they all expressed a positive desire to do so. Ray Cordon was also very instrumental in making me finally decide to enter the club into the ODCL league, and along with Ray's help, we entered the Oxford & District Chess League in September 2006, just in time for the start of the 06/07 season.

Of the four divisions in the league, we had to start in Division Four with seven other teams. At the end of our first season, Sept 06/April 07, we won twelve of our fourteen matches and lost the remaining two. Cumnor Chess Club won league division 4 after it's 12th match, with two games in hand, as none of the other teams were able to catch us at that point in the season. We finally attained 24 points out of a maximum of 28.

Cumnor Chess Club has been promoted to Division 3 after it's first season in the ODCL. The new season starts in October 2007 and ends in April 2008. 

Steven Bennett, club founder, 4th May 2007

The ODCL 07/08 season was completed in April 2008, with Cumnor finishing bottom of Division 3. This season has been a completely different experience to our previous year in Division 4. Of the ten matches played we only managed 2 draws. However, the team has played stronger this year, despite meeting up with much stronger opposition. We shall be playing in Division 4 again next season and we are committed to win the Division again in 08/09. The club has had some successes this season with two of it's Junior players qualifying to play for Oxfordshire. Louis Hampden plays for Oxon U11's and Hugo Thessieu plays for Oxon U10's. The club also grew substantially over 2007. We now have an adult membership of 15 players and a Junior membership of 10. Sadley, Dennis Dyer, one of the clubs senior members, died this year. The members of the club give their respects to his family.

Steven Bennett, club founder, 26th April 2008