I wanted to share with you an exciting new development in English league chess.

Our game has emerged from Covid stronger than ever, with renewed interest from a wider public following the great success of The Queen’s Gambit and the notoriety of the Niemann cheating scandal. In fact it has come to the attention of British entrepreneurs looking to extend their influence in fashionable sectors of our national life. None more so than Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a sports-loving businessman who is currently trying to buy Manchester United and who is a lifelong chess fan.

Sir Jim has decided to enter English league chess by bankrolling a team of professionals. He knows that top chess players, unlike top footballers or cyclists, can maintain their performance until relatively late in life. He himself is 70 years old. He has assembled a team of senior citizens (aged 60+) from the pool of English GMs. His squad of 10 comprises (in alphabetical order) GMs Arkell, Davies, Flear, Hebden, Keene, Mestel, Nunn, Plaskett, Speelman and Stean. This is a joint venture with a well-known online chess training company and the new outfit will be known as Team Chessable Silver Fox.

For next season, Sir Jim is seeking entry into Division 1 of the 4NCL and Division 1 of the London League. He believes that this assembly of talent could attain the level of dominance in English league chess that was enjoyed by Team Sky in British cycling in the decade from 2010.

You may be wondering what is my interest in this development. I do actually rate myself over the board. I once won an online blitz game against someone called DoccyDoc, although I have not been able to establish whether this was the Good Doctor himself. However, I have not yet attained the GM title and I am therefore not eligible to play for this team.

In fact Sir Jim has personally approached me to act as Team Manager. My organisational skills in the chess field have not gone unnoticed. I have been offered a retainer of £1,000 a match. There is no win bonus attached to this. Sir Jim expects Team Chessable Silver Fox to win all its matches and so there is no point creating any additional incentives for victory.

Naturally this commitment will affect my involvement in other areas of chess activity. I have to go where the money goes. So I have had to tell my colleagues at Streatham that I will not be available to play league chess for them more than twice a week from next season.

Sir Jim’s plans do not stop there. Over time he would like to fuse his twin passions of chess and cycling by developing the new sport of ChessCycling. In this, contestants will alternate standardplay games of chess at the senior-citizen-friendly time control of G90 + 30s with circuits of Box Hill on a team bike (Box Hill is the iconic Surrey climb that featured in the 2012 Olympic Road Race). A contest will consist of 9 standardplay games and 9 circuits of Box Hill. My role will not be to join them on the bike (which is a shame as I am a keen cyclist) but rather to drive the team car behind them on the course carrying spare bikes and essential nutritional drinks.

I am sure we all wish Sir Jim well in this new venture. Some people believe that the continued dominance of one team in any particular sport removes the excitement, since everyone else is competing for second, and this is as true in chess as in any other sporting discipline. However, the presence of so much talent in one team can help to drive up standards generally and so this should be good for English chess as a whole.