Dad's Army, or superkids?

England's chess team have one of the oldest average ages.

When tennis player Novak Djokovic fell to Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon semi-finals last week, the old saying was repeated: “Father time is unbeaten”

The thought was that the 38 year old, relatively ageing Novak could no longer compete with the younger generation who have greater pace and snap to their groundstrokes, aided by more athletic and supple limbs.

Such a comparison could not be made to chess, as players can stay competitive in their 50s and 60s, perhaps even older; while it is hard to imagine that a tennis player in their senior years could compete with or even beat a competitor in their 20s or 30s.

So when calculations show that England have one of the oldest top tens in the FIDE chess rating list with an average age of 48, conclusions are not completely clear. Is this proof that England have no younger generation waiting to replace the 2600+ stars that currently dominate the national team? Or rather is it evidence that we just have special older players and they haven’t declined as much as with other nations, hence why we’ve had such success at seniors?

There is no doubt that while England remain a strong team and a fairly powerful overall chess nation, we now fall short of world-class and no longer have players that can realistically fight for the world title. This was not the case in the past, as in the 1990s and 2000s it was hoped, and in some cases proven, that Nigel Short and then Michael Adams could fight for the world championship. Later still players like Luke Mcshane, David Howell and Gawain Jones showed considerable promise and threatened to break through to the elite. But now it seems that the well has run dry.

The reason why England have declined as a chess nation is manifold, but in my opinion it is mostly to do with money and how chess is perceived by not just those playing it, but also by those from the outside; in other words money is not put into the game and it is not perceived or protected as a cultural asset because it gets so little respect from the wider general public.

Just observe the comments made on the website “X” when the labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves made an announcement that the government would continue to support chess. Most were derogatory and questioned why any money was put into chess at all.

When chess is not considered to be a useful vocation to enter into because of the lack of money within (most likely data entry jobs are better paid) and is not respected by the general public, it is an easy decision to swerve it entirely as a career when you live in England. In countries where the average age of the top ten are in their 20s, like India, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Germany there is more money put into chess because in part, cultural activities are more respected than they are in the United Kingdom. There is also the case that chess will be used as a publicity tool to promote the nation in competitions abroad and to hide or disguise human rights abuses through the power of sport. The Soviet Union template lives on.

Where the argument that England can’t compete with countries like India who have a much bigger population falls down, is when you compare us with other European nations. There is no reason why we should have much older squads than countries like France, Germany, Italy, etc. This points to a failure in many aspects; in government support and planning, in coaching apparatus both at school level and in national competition, and in a failure to secure sponsorship that would have made chess a more palatable career to follow for those demonstrating promise in it.

Because of our ageing players, the England teams are in danger of turning into a Dad’s Army.

Most of all I believe, we are a victim of our own success. England rose to prominence as a chess nation in the fall-out of the 1972 Reykjavik chess explosion, when were inspired by the ability of lone-wolf Robert James Fischer to overcome the odds and defeat the supposedly unbeatable Russians. This gave rise to mavericks like Anthony Miles, Raymond Keene, Short, Adams, Jonathan Speelman, John Nunn, Murray Chandler, Jonathan Mestel and others who showed that you didn’t need to be an established chess country to achieve considerable success. We continued to be a hub of chess excellence even after tournaments like the Lloyds bank masters and Watson Farley Williams had discontinued, by hosting world championship matches and also the brainchild of Malcolm Pein, the London chess classic.

But such success bred complacency and lead us to the mistaken view that this was not a one-off and that this approach would continue to bring us success. Rather than using these experienced and successful players to nurture and bring on more generations of players, it was assumed that we could rest on our laurels and these self-driven and exceptional individuals would continue to appear as if by magic, despite the declining prize funds in chess tournaments very much suggesting the opposite. The recent addition of Nikita Vitiugov to the England team was in part an admission that this policy or lack of, had failed, and was also an attempt to fill the weakness in the national team.

Because no one had come through and Short and Matthew Sadler were no longer active, there was a big gap to the board five player who was generally rated around low 2500s FIDE ELO before Nikita was bought in. Now we at least have a team that can be reasonably competitive, such was shown at the last European team championships where we were in contention for the medals until right at the end.

Where the future is brighter and where the injection of government money might also help is in the younger players. Shreyas Royal, Bodhana Sivanandan, Supratit Banerjee, Ethan Pang, Stanley Badasconyi and others are the most promising generation of players that we have had for some time. It can be hoped that they can make the England team a force once more, and reduce the average age to one where it is less Dad’s army and more the rise of the superkids.