The Teesside Roar

There is a lot of talk about schools reopening today, when in fact they have never closed.

The difference is that all pupils are now expected to return, albeit with various new measures in place.

It should not be overlooked or forgotten that staff in all schools have worked incredibly hard, often in extremely difficult circumstances, all the way through the full year of the current pandemic.

It is strange that self-testing has just been introduced after a whole year of expecting school staff to work on the front-line without such an important measure being in place, but despite some loud voices offering opinions to the contrary, school staff do have an extremely strong sense of duty and genuinely do care about children and their families.

CSC Teesside has never stopped delivering chess lessons to our schools either.

We have had to evolve, retrain and often go beyond the call of duty.

Yet we never stopped - and didn't even come close to giving up.

I know for sure exactly the magnitude of our impact on schools.

Enrichment has become more important than ever. Teachers openly report to me that they have not seen the children so enthused about anything else for a long time. It has been worth the journey just to see all of the smiling faces.

We have delivered lessons online to nearly all of our CSC Teesside schools and from tomorrow we will be delivering partly online and partly in person.

School renewals for 2021-22 are going extremely well, proving that loyalty works both ways.

The CSC Tessside tutors - Mr. Cassidy, Mr. Harris and Mr. Edmunds - are three heroes, who have never shirked a challenge and who inspire hundreds of children all across our area, every single week.

We are certainly not out of the woods yet, but we are ready, willing and able to continue delivering top-quality lessons whatever happens next.

The Teesside roar will never fade away.

Project 30 Update

Project 30 Rapidplay Match Championship

January - April 2021

Semi-Final Pairings

(Matches are of six games)

Matt Jackman - Andrew Smith

Dave Baillie - Graham Edwards or Richard Harris (currently 0-2; to be concluded...)


Project 30 KO Championship 2021

February - April 2021

Semi-Final Pairings

(Players will decide the colours)

Andrew Smith - Dave Baillie

Matt Jackman - Rayelynn Posadas


Target Date for Completion of the Semi-Finals: End of March 2021.




All-play-all Capablanca Tournament

Peter Harker 5/6

Paul Weightman 3/6

Royce Parker 2.5/4

John Garnett 1.5/4

Mike Pointon 0/2

Kevin Waterman 0/2

Results

Peter Harker 2-0 Mike Pointon

Peter Harker 1-1 Paul Weightman

Peter Harker 2-0 Kevin Waterman

Royce Parker 1.5-0.5 John Garnett

Royce Parker 1-1 Paul Weightman

Paul Weightman 1-1 John Garnett


All-play-all Alekhine Tournament


Richard Harris 4.5/6

Graham Edwards 1/2

Royce Parker 0.5/2

Kevin Waterman 0/2



Results


Richard Harris 1-1 Graham Edwards

Richard Harris 2-0 Kevin Waterman

Richard Harris 1.5-0.5 Royce Parker

New Interview

This is the unedited version of an interview conducted by Matt Jackman for a CV8 Tennis project.

Head here for more about CV8:

Follow this link to learn more about Chess in Schools and Communities.

The Bible

Surprise!

My book is soon to be reissued, with a small number of updates, a new cover and a brand new title.

Further details are available here.

Project 30: January-April 2021

Project 30 hit the ground running at the start of 2021 with four new events.

Project 30 KO Championship 2021

Round One Results


Matt Jackman 1-0 Royce Parker

Dave Baillie 1-0 Dave Edmunds

Richard Harris 0-1 Peter Harker

Mike Pointon 1-0 Kevin Waterman

Sean Cassidy 0-1 Andrew Smith

Rayelynn Posadas 1-0 Graham Edwards

Paul Weightman 1-0 Bye

John Garnett 1-0 Bye

Round Two

John Garnett - Andrew Smith

Matt Jackman - Paul Weightman

Rayelynn Posadas 1-0 Peter Harker

Mike Pointon - Dave Baillie

Project 30 Rapidplay Match Championship

Round One Results


Matt Jackman 2-0 Kevin Waterman

Dave Baillie 1.5-0.5 Peter Harker

Richard Harris 2-0 Mike Pointon

Royce Parker 1-1 Andrew Smith (Andrew won the Blitz play-off, 2-0)

John Garnett 1-1 Rayelynn Posadas (Rayelynn won the Blitz play-off, 2-0)

Dave Edmunds 2-0 Paul Weightman

Sean Cassidy 2-0 Bye

Graham Edwards 2-0 Bye

Round Two

Dave Edmunds - Andrew Smith

Rayelynn Posadas - Matt Jackman 

Dave Baillie - Sean Cassidy

Graham Edwards - Richard Harris


Players eliminated from he first rounds of the above tournaments were invited to participate in the following all-play-all events.


All-play-all Capablanca Tournament

Kevin Waterman

John Garnett

Peter Harker

Mike Pointon

Royce Parker

Paul Weightman


All-play-all Alekhine Tournament

Kevin Waterman

Richard Harris

Royce Parker

Graham Edwards

In Equal Measure

It doesn't make sense to blame the year.

Other people can be blamed for tardy and inappropriate actions and we can be blamed for not always giving our best - but blaming a year makes no sense at all.

The world does not reboot on 1 January. We are not in a television show.

Revisiting some of my earlier blog posts on the strange circumstances in which we find ourselves charts the almost unbelievable developments of the last 10 months.

From the enormity of the situation becoming apparent, back in March, through the infested waters of May swiftly followed by highlighting the shame of my generation and then coming up to date with the notion that all people either create or destroy - yes, it all makes for a startling narrative.

We all know people who haven't made it through the emergency. Some have been taken by the virus and others in ways almost certainly related to the situation. Some were take by their own hand; others by illnesses exacerbated by the dark and depressing times in which we live.

It is hard to see a way through the lies and incompetence and it is pointless to dwell on who did or didn't do as they should have done. Suffice to say, washing hands to the tune of Happy Birthday was extremely unlikely to ever be an effective frontline defence against an artificially enhanced virus which was always going to bring the world to its knees for at least two years.

The emergence of new spikes and virus mutations were always extremely predictable. People are angry, bored, lonely and confused. Of course a significant number of them will break the rules, either occasionally or regularly.

It will take some time for the long-term effects of the virus to be known and the side effects of the bewildering array of vaccines which have all somehow appeared simultaneously will also take time to manifest themselves.

Forget the blame game; it is far too easy. Let's go inward.

The lives of every person have been changed. Physically, mentally, emotionally; so much has changed. Who can claim to have changed for the better? Who has not aged more in the last few months than during any other comparable time span?

The stronger of the people amongst us have a responsibility to help anyone who is struggling, for so many reasons; not least of which is the certainty that the roles can be reversed at any time. Who can make the clown laugh?

Personally, the last few months have presented to me the challenge of navigating the steepest learning curve since I started working for myself, back in 1988. The challenges have been different this time and certain aspects of my life have changed beyond recognition.

Some friends have drifted away; others have become much closer. Events, dreams and desires are all seen from a new perspective. When the darkness descends I endure a tidal wave of emotions and it seems every wasted opportunity and every mistake I ever made are all etched more deeply in my mind. Keep busy; keep creative.

Very few things will ever return to how they were and that will take a lot of getting used to. In fact, the world as we know has had it and my advice is to await the opportunity to squeeze as much fun out of life as you possibly can, before it is too late.

To bring this mini-series of posts full circle, I will say again: We are all valuable and fragile in equal measure.

Where do we go from here?

Influential Music of 2020

This has obviously been a very difficult year, with the arts suffering very badly.

Musical experiences have been few and far between. When it comes to new releases, these are the five I have listened to the most.

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Jah Wobble remained very active during 2020, putting out lockdown tracks with impressive regularity. He (together with the Invaders of the Heart) was one of the very few people I saw 'live' this year. The timing turned out to be extremely fortunate.

Jah put his new material out on two strictly limited CDs (just 100 of each). I have even more admiration for his work now than ever before.

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Reissued material from Iggy Pop's 'Bowie Years.' In fact it was a good year for Iggy Pop releases, with two more significant compilations: You Think You're Bad, Man? - The Road Tapes 73-74 and From K.O. to Chaos - The Complete Skydog Iggy Pop and The Stooges Collection.

The songs and their delivery provide a timely reminder of the important of resilience, defiance and energy.

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This was a surprise. Get Back Into The World is by the Sensible Gray Cells. They are The Damned's   Captain Sensible and Paul Gray, together with Johnny Moped drummer Marty Love.

The humour is impish; the songs catchy. There is also a decent amount of observational material.

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Stray Cats at their best. This album features tracks from various nights of their excellent 2019 tour. I reminder of how things were - giving rise to the desire for a return to normal as soon as possible.

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'Bring it back, bring it back, bring it back again...'