Prisons Chess Championships - European Gold Medalists!

Under the guidance of the ECF and CSC, four prisons lined up to represent England in the first FIDE Continental Online Prisons Chess Championships. An England Open team included players from HMP Winchester, HMP Highpoint and HMP Wormwood Scrubs, and a Youth team from HMP/YOI Isis. The teams were organised by the CSC, led by our Prisons Coordinator, Peter Sullivan, with tutors on site at each of the prisons.

The start of the matches could not have been more different, with the Open team recording convincing victories against Norway and Spain, a draw in Round 3 and a great win against Croatia, one of the favourites. By contrast, the Youth team defaulted the first three rounds because of internet connection difficulties, a perennial problem in prison chess - connecting 24 prisons from Iceland to Armenia is no simple task. Everyone had written the young players off, but they next managed a morale boosting victory against Greece followed by a 4-0 victory against Latvia. After this fantastic fightback, both the Youth and the Open teams were in contention in the final round.

The Open team were beaten by a fantastically strong women’s team from Ukraine and finished a creditable fourth equal, behind Serbia, who deservedly won the tournament. The Youth team needed to avoid defeat against the Czech team to pip Ukraine  for the title, which they achieved in the final game of the match. Many congratulations to HMP/YOI Isis representing England – gold medalists!

It is hard to overstate the impact that these tournaments have on self-esteem and confidence. One player told us: “I’ve never been in a team before. I didn’t want to let anyone down. Now I know I can do it. The others were brilliant.” Another young player, who has been brought up in children’s homes, whose parents have both been to prison and who has been in at least three prisons himself, said: “No-one has ever told me I’m good at anything. Everyone tells me I’m rubbish. But (CSC) trusted me and now I’m an England player, and I did alright and nobody can take that away from me.”

We now look forward to the World Championships in October, where we hope to field teams in the Open, Women’s and Youth sections.