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Chess Scotland Juniors designed by kids, for kids! Duffers By Jonathan Rowson My first major trip abroad involved representing Scotland at the European U-16 championships in Romania. I was just 14 at the time, and my mother was rather nervous about sending me, a diabetic, into an uncertain land which my Grandmother had depicted as ‘full of gypsies’. So my bags were stocked with a ridiculous amount of food and medicine- including sterile equipment, in the unlikely event that I needed a blood transfusion. At some unconscious level, I think my mum had made a link between Romania and Transylvania, and Dracula, and blood. But in any case, I was well equipped for a blood transfusion, and I knew that I had something called ‘plasma’ in my bag, hidden under my clothes, which sounded impressive, although even now I don’t know what it was, or why exactly I had it. Soon after arrival in Bucharest we were driven for four hours towards Mamaia- a resort by the Black Sea. I liked our driver, who spoke little English, but had gentle features, and took pleasure in trying to find a radio channel we might understand. He also smoked a lot, and his car, an unrepentant Skoda, had seen better days. But the reason that this memory is alive today is due to a conversation that I heard above the noise of the engine and the bumps on the road. David McLaughlin, a smiley ginger-haired catholic humorist, was sitting next to me in the back seat. David would later leave chess and become a doctor, but he was about to represent us in the U-14 section. We had been travelling for about ten hours and as the sun began to disappear, he expressed concern about being tired for the following day’s play. In reply to this plaintive remark, International Master Andrew Muir, our coach and mentor, sitting in the front seat, turned back to reassure us: Don’t worry, you’ll get duffers in the first round… Contented, he moved back to face the front, and we all looked out at the darkening road ahead. Then Andrew remembered that we were the Scottish team, and added: …Or maybe you are the duffers. To return to the Chess Thoughts page click here.