Location & Travel	Matches	Members	Contact details	Club History 1961-2003 & links to Devon chess
club champions since 1979	favourite games	club tournament results 2004-	Match results in Devon 2004-	Members' achievements in Devon 2006-

 

How to contact us	See the list of email addresses and phone numbers at the foot of this table.
Venue	Met Office FitzRoy Road EXETER Devon EX1 3PB
How to find us	http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/location/exetermap.html
by Car	Met Office is sign-posted off Honiton Road ¼ mile from M5 Junction 29. Visitors should press the entry-phone button at the traffic barrier, and follow instructions and signs to the Visitors Car Park. Cross the footbridge then follow the slate paved stream to the main entrance.
Public Transport	the Met Office is served by buses 56 (St Davids to Exeter Airport), H1 (St Davids to Business Park), B (Marsh Barton via Pinhoe station to Met Office). Buses 60 380 92 PR2 SR4 serve Honiton Rd (4 minutes walk). Two rail stations Pinhoe (Exeter - Yeovil) and Digby (Exmouth - Paignton) are about a mile walk. Bus H1 and the trains run till after the end of chess matches.
Chess Matches	Tuesday 6:30pm - 9pm : match nights only. League, friendly, and internal club matches are normally played on Tuesday evening, in room F-G2 where White must fianchetto the king’s bishop ;-} For our first 3 seasons (2004-07) we entered Division 1 of the Exeter & District League, and played a few friendly matches. We said 'watch this space for change', for 2007-08 we have gained one and a half members and also entered Division 2.
Weekly club meetings	The club meets most Thursday lunchtimes at 12:30 in our coffee shop for up to an hour of grandmaster analysis, match post mortems, or rapid play chess.
Membership	As you can read overleaf, we left many former members behind in Berkshire. Currently we have only five club members who have played league chess more or less continuously for the last 10 to 30 years. Another five former players live in Devon and work at the Met Office, but each has only played 2 or 3 games in total since 1997. Two players from the Rural Payments Agency (our first match opponents in Devon) have joined us this season (2007-08).

MEMBERS	ECF code	other or previous clubs	Grade	min / max (year)
Keil, Andreas	233515D 266236L	Fleet & Farnborough, Germany	176	175 to 176 ( 2007)
Murray, J Stephen	116002D	Exmouth, Met Office Berks	136	135 to 158 (1993)
Taylor, Wilfrid RP	182650F	Met Office Berks	136	124 to 145 (1989)
Lane, Neville S	114050E	RPA, Ashtead	135 est	149 to 154 (1994)
Ross, Gil H	118233L	Seaton, Met Office Berks	100	98 to 136 (1991)
Bramley, Graham	-	RPA, Met Office HQ	105 est	never graded
Ward, W Gareth	121138K	Bracknell, Berkshire CA, Met Office Berks, Beckenham	97	96 to 128 (1986)
Richard Wood	140650E	Met Office Berks	140 est	134 to 152 (1994)
William Hand	112017H	Met Office Berks		92* to 137 (1991)
Andrew Lorenc	-	Met Office Berks		171*
Colin Flood	-	Met Office Berks		116*
Guy Robinson	-	Met Office HQ	92*
CONTACT INFORMATION		no-spam Email Addresses @ metoffice.gov.uk	Work Tel 01392 88	Mobile
Sec/Treas		gareth.ward	6922	07910 194875
Captain		steve.murray	6366
DCCA		gil.ross @ physics.org	6973
CSSC & Club tournament		wilf.taylor	4075
Coach		andreas.keil	6162

Games

This is what all chess players really want to see - the games we play, and for our future opponents - our openings ! Here is a small selection of our members' favourite games. Your website author even picked one of his losses - because it really is an amazing game !

9 Oct 2000	Haslemere A v Met Office C	Alan Bice 144 1 - 0 104 Gareth Ward
7 March 2006	Met Office A v Exmouth A	Michael Cox 185 0 - 1 170* Andreas Keil
2003	Berks v Cumbria	Taylor W. v Hobbs C.

For the above games

For a report on the 2007 Civil Service Championships by Andreas Keil

History of the Club
(and what has this got to do with Chess in Devon ?)

The Met Office was formed by the Admiralty in 1854, but nothing is known about Chess at the Met Office until a hundred years later. In the 1950s the Met Office HQ was at Dunstable, where one Chess Club member was David Dicks. David continued to play chess regularly for Met Office CC until we moved to Devon in November 2003. David’s last grade was 74 and he is somewhat older than that.

In 1961 the Met Office moved from Dunstable to a brand-new state-of-the-art building in Bracknell. The Chess Club was re-founded in 1961 and apart from 8 years of apathy in the 60s-70s it continued for the life of the building. Two founder members Brian Edkins (130-79) & David Macklin (110-83) continued to play for the club until 2003. Dave Macklin plays regularly at Chess congresses in Torbay.

In the late 70s the club thrived and ran sometimes three and usually two 6-board teams in the Berkshire League. Two then young club members Wilf Taylor (124–145) & Will Hand (137–92) have played against Devon clubs in 2005-06. Two lady members Jessica Hand then Alison McClure (BCF 150+) enhanced the club. The club's strongest player was Frank Woolford who continued to score over 85% in the club's slowplay and blitz tournaments into his sixties.

The 80s and 90s saw fresh blood, including David Roberts (163–189) who decided not to move to Exeter, and played at least one GM in the 2007 WECU championships in Exmouth. Richard Wood (134–152) gave up chess in 1997 to take up croquet, string quartets, and climate research, but has scored 50% in 3 recent Exeter League Division 1 matches. The A team oscillated between the Berkshire 1st and 2nd Divisions, and also included Steve Murray (135–158), Simon Waters (135–158), and Gil Ross (98–136) who are already well-known in Devon chess circles.

Gareth Ward (96–128) joined the Met Office in 1993 from suburban Kent chess, and took on the B team captaincy from Bob Whyman. The B team usually just missed promotion from Berks Div 3. Bob (93-114) was Club Secretary for more years than anyone could remember, and also played regularly up to 2003.

The club has run slowplay and blitz internal competitions for which we have trophies each engraved with 20 winners. We won the Berkshire_Chess_Association (see Archive > Trophy winners) Division 2 Trophy in 1963, 1985, 1988, and 2003, and were in a 3-way tie in 1993. We won the Jubilee Plate (1st-round-losers Cup) in 1994. The B team were Division 3 champions in 1981 & 1987.

In 1999 Gareth persuaded the club to try fresh challenges - BCF National Club u125, then the Surrey-Hants Border League (clubs around Guildford) to escape from the ineligibility rules of the Berkshire League. The club ran one 6-board (Berks) and two 5-board (Border) teams for our final two seasons in Bracknell.

Around this time we were aware of but hadn’t met an employee Andreas Keil (*152–*179), who worked at our Farnborough site in 2000-02 before returning to Germany for 2 years. Andreas played board 1 for Fleet in the Border League.

The club’s active membership just before we left Berkshire was about 15, comprising 7-8 employees, 4 Met Office pensioners, and 3-4 refugees from other clubs (including Peter Byre who has played the Exmouth Seniors congress). In 2003 the club donated some members and both Leagues’ places to Bracknell CC who at the time were one team with no home venue.

Only 5 *keen* chess players now work at the Exeter HQ, and their exploits will form a future history of the Met Office Chess Club in Exeter. We suspect we employ many competent chess players, but they prefer bridge skittles golf or family life ! We hope some of them will add Chess to their portfolio before we retire.

CLUB CHAMPIONS ROLL of HONOUR

SLOWPLAY CHAMPION	YEAR	BLITZ CHAMPION
Nick Brown	1979
Norman Gunther 131 & Pip Sarson	1980	Frank Woolford
Frank Woolford 180*	1981
Frank Woolford	1982	John Austin
Frank Woolford	1983	Frank Woolford
Frank Woolford 155	1984	Frank Woolford 155
not known	1985	David Roberts
Bruce Ingleby 128	1986	David Roberts 163
Will Hand 132	1987	Bob Whyman 110 & John Austin 126#
Wilf Taylor 134	1988
Mike Colgate 146	1989
Frank Woolford 140	1990	Frank Woolford 140
David Roberts 173	1995	David Roberts 173
David Dicks 96	1996	David Roberts 189
Richard Wood 144	1997	Norman Gunther 103
Adrian Pickersgill 169	1998	Steve Murray 146
Adrian Pickersgill 168	1999	Joe Boreham 158
Paul Horrocks 107	2000	Steve Murray 146
Steve Murray 153	2001	Paul Lewis 124
Joe Boreham 154	2002	David Roberts 189
Philip Naylor 138	2003	David Roberts 173
Steve Murray 138	2005
Andreas Keil 179*	2006	Andreas Keil 179*
	2007
	2008

In the table above, grades from 1990 on are actual at the tournament start - before that winners' grades quoted are for 1988 (the earliest grading list I own) except for * (anecdotal / unpublished) and # which is a 2002 grade. The tournament was contested in 1985, but the 2 leaders had not played each other before the AGM - irritatingly the Minutes for 1985 & 1986 do not name them.

Met Office Chess Club in Devon (2004 to 2007)

The Met Office Chess Club hosts most DCCA committee meetings. Steve Murray and Wilf Taylor play for Devon county teams. Steve also plays for Exmouth and Gil Ross for Seaton. Wilf organises the south-west regional qualifier for the Civil Service championships (see report below).

Match Results in Devon

match type	date	HOME team				AWAY team
friendly	13-09-2004	Met Office	2	-	2	Rural Payments Agency
Ex&DL Div1	21-02-2005	Met Office	1.5	-	2.5	Exmouth A
Ex&DL Div1	05-04-2005	Met Office	2	-	2	Exeter Rooks
Ex&DL Div1	11-04-2005	Met Office	1	-	3	Sidmouth A
friendly	21-09-2005	Met Office	3.5	-	0.5	Teignmouth
friendly	29-11-2005	Met Office	1.5	-	2.5	Newton Abbott
Ex&DL Div1	17-01-2006	Sidmouth A	3.5	-	0.5	Met Office
Ex&DL Div1	07-03-2006	Met Office	2.5	-	1.5	Exmouth A
Ex&DL Div1	28-03-2006	Met Office	0.5	-	3.5	Exeter Rooks
Ex&DL Div1	27-03-2007	Met Office	0	-	4	Exmouth A
Ex&DL Div1	17-04-2007	Exeter Rooks	1.5	-	2.5	Met Office
Ex&DL Div1	25-04-2007	Met Office	1.5	-	2.5	Sidmouth A
Ex&DL Div2	??-11-2007			-
Ex&DL Div2	??-12-2007			-
Ex&DL Div1	??-01-2008			-
Ex&DL Div2	2008			-
Ex&DL Div1	2008			-
Ex&DL Div2	2008			-
Ex&DL Div1	2008			-
Ex&DL Div2	??-04-2008			-

Achievements
Our club members as individuals clocked up 2 near-misses and 3 trophies in 2006 and 2007.

Andreas Keil 3rd in national Civil Service championship 2006   (full report, game(s), and photographs)
Andreas Keil (179e) won the 2006 South-West regional qualifier of the CSSC (Civil Service Sports Council) chess championships, organised by Wilf Taylor. Andreas then finished 3rd (unbeaten) in the 2006 CSSC National Chess Finals in Leeds in late July, playing five opponents averaging ECF 169. Andreas also won the 5-Minute Blitz Tournament at Leeds.

Andreas also qualified for the 2007 nationals in adventurous style. In the South-West regional qualifier he won in rounds 1 2 3 & 5 - but instead of playing round 4 he dashed home to care for his daughter. Andreas (and Alan Brusey of Teignmouth) both finished on 3 out of 5 in the 2007 CSSC national finals, and Andreas retained his Blitz title.

After being donated pieces by several opponents, Gareth Ward (100 s) led after 5 rounds of the 2006 Teignmouth Rapidplay u-120, but found there are no prizes for losing to Robert Thompson and 4th place. Gareth did get a reward from the day - the Western Morning News Chess Correspondent (Bob Jones) wanted the scoop of being first to publish (27th May) Gareth's game from a 1995 simul by GM David Bronstein.

Club Tournament results

Steve Murray is Champion of the Club Tournament which started in 2004 but took over 2 years to finish.

Andreas Keil won the first internal handicap blitz tournament to be held in Exeter, playing all 6 games with a 3 - 7 minutes time handicap. Two good players who haven't recently played competitive chess took part, but otherwise turnout was disappointing.

Andreas Keil won the 2006 slowplay Tournament too, so is only our 3rd member ever to win both internal trophies in the same year.

Date	White	Grade		Result		Grade	Black
18/10/2004	Steve Murray	138	1	-	0	u92	Guy Robinson
25/10/2004	Guy Robinson	u92	0	-	1	134	Wilf Taylor
06/12/2004	Wilf Taylor	134	0	-	1	109	Gil Ross
09/12/2004	Gareth Ward	97	0.5	-	0.5	u92	Guy Robinson
26/04/2005	Gareth Ward	97	0.5	-	0.5	134	Wilf Taylor
09/05/2006	Gareth Ward	100	0	-	1	132	Wilf Taylor
23/05/2006	Gareth Ward	100	0	-	1	e170	Andreas Keil	#
06/06/2006	Andreas Keil	*179	1	-	0	133	Wilf Taylor
28/06/2006	Wilf Taylor	133	0.5	-	0.5	136	Steve Murray
19/07/2006	Andreas Keil	*179	0.5	-	0.5	136	Steve Murray
03/10/2006	Steve Murray	136	1	-	0	96	Gareth Ward
13/11/2006	Wilf Taylor	133	1	-	0	98	Gil Ross
14/11/2006	Gil Ross	98	0	-	1	*179	Andreas Keil
28/11/2006	Gil Ross	98	1	-	0	96	Gareth Ward
18/12/2006	Steve Murray	136	1	-	0	98	Gil Ross
23/08/2007	Wilf Taylor	136	1	-	0	e105	Graham Bramley
10/09/2007	Steve Murray	136	0	-	1	e105	Graham Bramley	#

# the weaker player got the stronger player into time trouble in these two games, hence one of the results.