GM John Nunn reminiscences about his formative years at Kingston Chess Club

Photo: John Nunn, Oriel College, Oxford 1970

I joined Kingston Chess Club in 1967, just after my victory in the British Under-14 Championship in August of that year. At the time the club met in an upstairs room at the Kingston Working Men’s Club. The club room was relatively small, but when a match was in progress a larger adjacent room was used to separate the “serious” chess from friendly games.

The club provided a friendly and welcoming atmosphere, but in common with many clubs of the time was not especially suitable for juniors. You had to sneak past the bar, dodging the licensing laws, and the club room itself was heavy with tobacco smoke. At least this had the benefit of putting me off any kind of smoking for the rest of my life. Later the club moved to a larger ground floor room, which was noisier but had better ventilation.

I reckon that I played 45 games altogether for Kingston in various competitions, mainly in the period 1967-73. There were also many games in internal events such as the club championship, which I won in 1969 and 1970. After I went to Oxford in 1970 my appearances became less frequent since I could only play in the university vacations, and soon international appearances started to occupy even those.

I played a couple of games in 1975 and made a special appearance in 2018, but it’s the years 1967-73 that I most closely associate with the club. I went every week I could, and I think that the strong opposition I met in the Surrey competitions was helpful to my chess development. Here’s one of the last games I played for Kingston, published here for the first time. It is typical for my style at age 17.