War of words

Chess world divided in row over national federations
DAMIEN HENDERSON
June 28 2008

We have long grown used to seeing questions of national identity played out on the football pitch. But for a game normally regarded as the cerebral opposite of the nation’s favourite pastime, chess would rarely seem to provoke such passions.

This week, however, has seen an extraordinary row break out between two of the country’s leading chess grandmasters over the merits of Scotland having its own national team, with Nigel Short, Britain’s most famous player, calling the situation “absurd, anachronistic, and profoundly discriminatory”.

The English GM, who challenged Garry Kasparov for the world championship in 1993 and now resides in Greece, called for the formation of a British (UK) Chess Federation that would take in players from across the UK.

He also launched a withering attack on Jonathan Rowson, the leading Scottish player and three-times UK champion, accusing him of not “appreciating his citizenship”.

In an open letter on the popular chessbase.com server, he added: “At least his fellow Scotsman, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, does . . . It is the UK that is a member of the UN and the IOC (International Olympic Committee). England, Scotland, Wales, Jersey and Guernsey are not – they are simply parts of that same country.”

However, Short’s remarks provoked a furious response in Scotland, where he was accused of riding roughshod over the sensitive debate over Scotland’s sporting and constitutional future.

There was also widespread condemnation of the idea of forming a Team UK, as Scotland currently punches well above its weight in international competitions. According to some experts, a British team would be unlikely to include more than one Scottish GM – Jonathan Rowson.

The argument was sparked when Rowson, who is The Herald’s chess correspondent, publicly objected to comments on the chessbase website which said that Britain could field teams from “Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and probably Northumbria”.

In a brief remark published on Wednesday, he labelled the notion as offensive and betraying “complete ignorance of the unique geopolitical situation in Britain, where several nations peacefully coexist within one nation state”.

But this elicited an angry reaction from Short, who mocked the status quo where five federations are recognised by FIDE, chess’s governing body.

Here is the full story.