Chess Scotland
Juniors
designed by kids,
for kids!
Jonathan Rowson visit - Kelvingrove Art
Museum
Photos by John Glendinning
Jonathan Rowson’s
visit to Scotland
was set up with a number of motives in mind.
Firstly Chess Scotland wanted to celebrate Jonathan’s amazing
achievement in winning the British championships three years in a row. Secondly he had agreed to award the
Jonathan Rowson Award to the Boy Chess Player of
the Year – Christopher Macdonald and the Cherie Booth Award to the Girl Chess
Player of the Year, Amy Officer.
Thirdly, we had been trying to organise Jonathan to visit the Youth
Squad for a long time and this seemed like the perfect opportunity!
We chose this prestigious venue to
coincide with the simultaneous display to be played by Jonathan Rowson and what a venue it proved to be!
 
Jonathan
awarding the trophies to Chris and Amy.
The
simultaneous was to be played in the main entrance hall and the training day
was booked in one of the conference rooms downstairs. We had a large turnout of youth squad
members on the day and five coaches had offered to attend. A group of players were invited to play I the morning simultaneous, the remaining members retired
to the conference room to start their morning’s training. Their turn would come later in the
afternoon when Jonathan was to visit the youth Squad to give a talk and play
a simultaneous.
The
players were split into groups and went off with their allocated coaches
Jacob Aagaard, Neil Berry, Graeme Kafka, Stephen Mannion and Duncan Grassie. Meanwhile the simultaneous games upstairs
continued and one by one, our little group of juniors finished their games
and waited to see if anyone would manage a result against Jonathan Rowson. Our very
own Christopher Macdonald very proudly finished his game with a win–much to
the delight of the rest of the Youth Squad.
Chris is very well known within the junior ranks and everyone
congratulated him on his wonderful win.
Lunch
time was spent either in the cafe or out in the beautiful grounds of the art
museum and all too quickly it was time for Jonathan’s talk. The
Youth Squad members sat quite engrossed in Jonathan’s interesting and enlightening talk. Of course, the question and answer session
was most entertaining with Jonathan being asked to talk about his worst loss
and other no doubt equally embarrassing moments is his chess career.
 
Once the
talk was finished, the tables were set up for the simultaneous. Thus ended a
very enjoyable day for all involved.
Thanks to John Glendinning for all the work
he did to set up this marvellous celebration of chess. Thanks also to the coaches for giving their
time so nobly to further our juniors.
Finally, many thanks to Jonathan Rowson for
a fantastic day.
A few of
the juniors and coaches stayed on to attend a celebratory meal with Jonathan
later on that evening. Jonathan gave
another talk – this time about the milestones in his life which contributed
to his becoming a Grandmaster and the people he was involved with along the
way. A very interesting and amusing
way to spend an evening!
This was
truly a very successful day and one which should be made a regular occurrence
in the Chess Scotland calendar. The
venue was spectacular and a very wise choice to heighten the general public’s awareness of chess.
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