CLUB  HISTORY

​

​

RUSHDEN  CHESS  CLUB  HONOURS

Silver King League  A - Division  Champions  ---  1988 - 1990 - 1991 - 1995
Silver King League  B - Division  Champions  ---   too numerous to count
John Robinson Knockout Trophy Winners  ---  1979 - 1987 - 1989 - 1990 - 1993
SKL  A - Division &  JRKO Double Winners  ---  1990
NCA  Quickplay  Winners  --->  2016

​

​

​

A Potted History of the RC Club by Alan 'Doc' Lewis

​

Rushden Chess Club was founded in early 1977 by members of the defunct Wellingborough Chess Club which used to meet in the town's Polish Club. Rushden Sports Centre was our original venue where there were rooms for the adult members and a whole host of junior members. Original members included Jim Nightingale (the club's first Chairman), Ray Stockwell (Board 1), Bob Petit (Secretary) and Jeff Owen (who coached the junior members). The RC Club achieved its first success in 1979 by winning the county knockout trophy against all odds. At this stage the club only entered one team of six players in
county events but in the coming years this increased to three teams in each competition.

The club also had a team, Rushden Rooks, entered in a correspondence chess tournament run by the BCCS.
*
  It was nearly ten years later when success struck again after moves to Marriots Social Club in Washbrook Road, Rushden, then the British Legion Club in Higham Ferrers, and finally The Compasses pub in Bedford Road, Rushden. The four years from 1987 were a golden period in the club's history winning both the knockout trophy and Silver King trophy (county league champions) on several occasions, the achievements being down to our excellent junior component of Simon Dixon, Mark Hann and Jason Dilley.

 

The success continued as more junior players came of age, including Martin Dilley and
Stephen Cullip, who with an ECF grade of 206 was the highest rated player to represent the club.

  In 1993 Jason Dilley entered a team into the Bedfordshire league where they played for three seasons.
As the junior players left, usually to go to university, they were not replaced and the club was reduced to entering just one team into county events. During this period the club again moved, first from the Compasses to the Athletic Club in Newton Road, Rushden, for one season, and then on to the Conservative Club, High Street South in Rushden where the club remained for some 15 or so years before again getting the fidgets and moving to the Windmill Club in 2009. Though we were happy with the Windmill the taxman and the bank were not, and the club's saddening closure in Oct 2011 brought us to our current venue Rushden Town Bowls Club. My, we are a restless bunch.

  ___________________________

​

​

The Current RCC Management Team is :-

                                  Tom Murts          : A Team Captain
                                  Hugh Murphy     : Chairman
                                  Joshua Morris    : Treasurer / Secretary
                                
                                  
 

​

​

​

​