Club History 3: The Forties and Fifties
Post War Activity
In 2026, Richard Burrows, son of a former club secretary came across old club records. Included in them is a cutting from Worcester News & Times dated 11 October 1940 reporting the cub’s annual meeting held at The Victoria Institute. Mr FB Ball was president, secretary and treasurer, reported the club was flourishing and he proposed the club should continue meeting during the summer months, the first time since 1897. The club championship was competed by 15 players and the all-play-all scores of leading players were: RD Wormald and RW Bonham 12½, TEW Widdows 11, FG Lowe 10½, Rev JC Robertson 10, FB Ball 8½, and CE Small 8½ points. In the play-off, Bonham beat Wormald. The summer tournament was also won by Bonham with 8 points in a field of 8 players followed by Rev JC Robertson and FG Hale on 4 points. There were no county league fixtures and two friendly matches were played agains RGS Worcester and Worcester College for the Blind. WT Hayes was elected as president for the 1940-1 season with HG Perkins (secretary & treasurer), FB Ball (team captain) and WT Hayes (auditor). names of vice-presidents attending this meeting were: HG Davey, FG Hale, FB Ball, and RD Wormald. At the prize-giving, the Championship cup went to RD Wormald, the Ranken cup to RD Wormald and the Jones Cup to TEW Widdows. The club planned to meet on Mondays and Thursdays each week.
Worcester City Club entered the National Club Championships in both 1950 and 1951. They reached the provincial semi-finals, but were unfortunate to encounter the very strong Liverpool Club and lost on both occasions. By a strange co-incidence, the club at Liverpool was also founded in 1837. In the inter-club matches, Worcester defeated many strong clubs and Bonham in particular scored some notable victories. In one regional match against Hereford on Board 1 he sacrificed his queen and announced mate in seven moves! Later when Worcester played Exeter, Bonham beat F.E.A Kitto, the West of England Champion.In 1952, Worcester players helped to organise the first 100-board match between Worcestershire and Warwickshire at Worcester Guildhall, the forerunner of many other county fixtures.
League Champions in 1958-9 and 1964
Worcester City Chess Club has won the Worcestershire County League on numerous occasions, generally fighting it out with Stourbridge in the early post-war years. Probably the Club's strongest performance was in the 1958-9 season when all seven matches were won with the astonishing game tally of 30 wins, 10 draws and only 2 losses. The team composition was Reg Bonham, Douglas Wormald, Maurice Smith, Tom Widdows, Maurice Bissell (currently secretary of Worcestershire Chess Association), Tom Waits (another Worcester Royal Grammar School master). Teams from the Club have won this league on 15 occasions. Tom Widdows was Competitions Secretary of Worcestershire County Association's league and wrote a regular chess column in Worcester Evening News (now the Worcester News) from 1945 to 2005. Until that time Tom was the longest serving chess correspondent for a newspaper, a distinction now taken by Britsh master Leonard Barden who writes for The Guardian.