A window to chess in 1972

I was going through my storeroom yesterday, trying to clear the space of some old unused items and generally cleaning off the accumulated dust of the past years when I came across an old notebook which I had used to copy down some old games from chess books and magazines.

But at the end of the book were several newspaper clippings from 1972, which I had obviously forgotten about. They were gems as the clippings included the newspaper stories of the world chess championship match of that year, as printed by the New Straits Times.

Yes, the world chess championship match of "that year" referred, of course, to the match between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer. A stupendous match, a de facto "Cold War" match,  that caught the attention of the whole wide world and pushed chess to rarified levels never seen before.

Who would have realised, 47 years later, I would be reading the same stories again? Re-living the excitement of the match. If I remember correctly, even the radio stations around the world were reporting on the match.

The BBC World Service, for example, was prominent in this respect as at the end of the day, the radio station would dedicate five whole minutes to report religiously  on the outcome of the day's game. Of course, Penang being seven and a half hours then ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT+8 would come a few years later), I would be listening to the World Service on the shortwave in the mornings. Listening to the reports, then rushing off to school where my chess pals would be waiting for me eagerly to pass on the latest chess news. A harbinger of my later interest in chess journalism, perhaps?

But there was one newspaper story that really jolted me. I had thought that I had lost this newspaper clipping forever as I had been searching unsuccessfully for it in the last few years. Of course, my search would have been unsuccessful because I had been looking in the wrong places. If I had remembered that it was here all along, snucked within the pages of this notebook, I would have been reunited with it much earlier.

So what story was it that I had been searching high and low for? Eleven years ago, I had written in this blog (click here and here) about the dissolution of the Penang Schools' Students Chess Council but I never gotten round to relate what had happened after that. Well, this story here from the Straits Echo of 20 December 1972 will provide a fitting conclusion to the story of the Penang Schools' Students Chess Council.

(See how old the stories were? The newsprint pictures, below and above, are all yellowed with age. Almost 50 years ago!)

PENANG, Wed. - Mr Fang Ewe Churh, President of the Penang Chess Association, this morning received seven challenge trophies from the Penang Schools' Students Chess Council at a simple ceremony before a small gathering of the Han Chiang Primary School here for safe-keeping as well as for display at exhibition.

The presentation was made by Mr Tan Yam San, advisor to the Penang Schools' Students Chess Council, which has now been dissolved.

Founded in 1966, the Council's first objective was to stimulate, promote and improve chess in the schools.

Its other major aims of organising inter-school tournaments, co-ordinating inter-school activities and to serve as a concrete body representing student chess interests in the State had also been realised.

The Council's decision to dissolve was motivated by the fact that encouragement and support both financially and morally was now being given by the Ministry of Education and that members were in favour of participating in the Penang Schools' sports Council and Low Hooi Siah chess tournaments now being organised annually.

MEMBERSHIP

As such it also decided that all challenge trophies for the various inter-school and individual chess championships be handed to the Penang Chess Association.

The trophies presented were: Open students Chinese chess and international chess challenge cups, inter-school Chinese chess and international chess challenge shields, inter-school international chess (girls) challenge shield, girls' open international chess challenge cup and inter-school under-16 international chess challenge shield.

The founder members of the Council were Chung Hwa High School, Chung Ling High School, Han Chiang High School, Methodist Boys' School, Penang Free School and St Xavier's Institution.

With the maturing of the Council, membership increased to envelope the Chess Clubs of Bukit Mertajam High School, Convent Light Street, Chung Ling High School (Private), Jelutong Secondary School, St George's Girls' School and St Mark's Butterworth.

During the years of its existence, it organised several championships which included the Penang students' Chinese chess and international chess individual championships, the Penang inter-school Chinese chess and international chess championships, the Penang inter-school international chess championships for girls, the Penang girls' international chess individual championships, Penang inter-school under-16 international chess and Chinese chess championships and the Penang students under-16 international chess individual championships.

Meanwhile, Mr Fang Ewe Churh stated today that the Penang Chess Association had now moved from the Penang Library to the Chung Ling Old Boys' Association in Anson Road.

Chess sessions are being held twice weekly on Tuesdays and Fridays from 7.30 p.m.

All members are invited to attend as often as possible and are encouraged to bring in friends interested in the game.

POSTSCRIPT: In those days we students had a lot of independence to plan our activities. Once we had the tacit approval from our own school's chess club advisor to proceed, we would set everything into motion ourselves. The Penang Schools' Students Chess Council was the initiative that the Penang Free School Chess Club was proud to be a part of. Once the Council was formed in 1966 - although inter-school chess tournaments had been going on since 1964 - there was no turning back. The events kept growing and once the girls' schools came on board as members, we began holding tournaments for them to find the champion girls' school and the girls' champion.

The chairmanship of the Council was rotated among the schools. Normally, we would hold the meetings at the school holding this position. Here, we got to know the chess club office-bearers from the other schools, inter-mingling with them as we planned the year's activities. But of course, there were always a great rivalry brewing in the background. We saw every school as equals but I would be less than honest if I don't admit that scoring psychological points and trying to get a one-upmanship on the other schools always featured in our mutual dealings with one another. After all, that was what the game is all about, on and off the chess board.

As far as I knew, Tan Yam San had always been the advisor to the Council. He was already a senior citizen in the 1960s. He had a very calm composure and usually agreed to everything we proposed. Tan was previously teaching at the Chung Ling High School until 1969 and he was always there for everybody who were in chess. He stayed at the government quarters behind Penang Free School and often, after school hours, we would slip through the back door to play chess with him and his son, Tan Keng Jin. In the 1980s, you could still see him play chess in Penang Chess Association events and normally losing inevitably to the younger players around him. Such was his love for the game that he didn't care about the results. Keng Jin later became my colleague at Ban Hin Lee Bank.