History - luminaries

Our longest continuously serving member is our current Chairman, Paul Durrant, who joined the club a little after David, in 1960. Paul recalls that the club was based at Surbiton Grammar School  at the time. As can be seen in the table above, Paul first appears as a club official in the records in 1977 when he was Secretary. When asked about this Paul confessed to having no memory whatsoever of being club Secretary. One wonders whether this may partly explain the lack of our paper records!

Paul recalls:

Chess clubs were a dime a dozen when I joined, with (local) clubs such as Norbiton, Kingston, Hanger Sports, NPL, Epsom, Stoneleigh, Sutton and Hampton all in competition for members. The big four were Kingston, Wimbledon, Sutton and Richmond who fielded British Champions. Richmond really dominated with 4A graded players (about 200 ECF) on bottom board.

In one match in the 60s we had the distinction of beating Richmond A away. We fielded Michael Basman, Richard Lemon, myself, Andrew Forster John Wright (soon to become US Amateur Champion) and two others. We were out-graded on every board. My Ponziani claimed the scalp of a 203 graded player.

Mike Basman joined in 1959 when we were at Surbiton Grammar and "left" in 1964 to go to University. He first played for the club on board 3 for the 2nd team and defeated Trevor Brugger in his first match. He was moved up to the first team and played below D J Groen, Tom Wild and G. C Galustian. It was well over a year before he was allowed to play board 3 and it was only in 63 and 64 that was he allowed to play board 1 where he had the distinction of losing to Michael Franklin.

Another notable member of the club, remembered by Paul Durrant, was Donald Woods, the anti-apartheid campaigner and journalist who spent time in exile in London. Donald negotiated the club moving to the Surbiton Club. His first recorded match for the club in the SCCA league was in 1984.

The Surbiton Club was the venue that attracted our first World Champion member. Robert Fulford joined us while we were there. He was World Croquet Champion! SCCA records him playing matches for Surbiton between 1999-2002.