The Chief Operating Officer of CSC charity visited South Shields Central Library on Saturday Morning for CHESS FOR ALL SESSION.

This iconic Building, known as THE WORD, The National Centre for the Written Word, a state-of-the-art cultural centre at the Heart its community has also been a regular venue for Chess for the last 3 years. These sessions played in this highly visible location has proved to be very successful in generating interest in new and returning Chess Players, young and old.

In this image we can see George Richardson being reunited with a trophy he won back in 1984. The FRIENDS bowl was donated to the club in 1947 and is competed for on a handicap basis allowing players of all abilities to play with odds advantage.

George gave up playing chess in 1990 and it only by chance he visited the library a few weeks ago and has now had his interested reignited and has become a new regular player again , so we thought it would be nice to re-unite him with the trophy . it might inspire him to try and win it again .

Eddie Czestochowski, one of the organizers, explained that these sessions prior to Covid had led to spawning an After School at a local Junior club and more recently, we have inspired a few of the children to enter the Durham Junior Championships, happening next weekend.

The opportunities for chess in schools in South Shields have been virtually non-existent in recent years so library chess run by volunteers is the next best thing. “Apparently we did have a former ladies champion Kanwal Bhatia start her chess career in a junior school in South Shields so who knows maybe we can inspire someone to follow suit “ .