I’m hoping to enter the Hastings Weekend Chess Congress at the first weekend after the New Year. I have never previously been to the entry point to the UK of Perry de Havilland’s marauding ancestors. They were among the (so far) most successful gang of 11th century “asylum seekers”.
In order of Anglosphere fame I suppose Hastings ranks as:
- The place where the Norman Conquest happened. And since I spent much of yesterday enduring endless processions of fairweather English rugby fans parading around central London, pretending they know what a three-quarter line is, and I lost money on France to win the rugby world cup, I remind Anglo-Saxons that the battle was the most decisive result between the two countries.
[I feel better already!] - Captain Hastings, the nice but dim sidekick of Agatha Christie’s fictional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The main problem being that most Belgians I have met are either extremely racist (so would not live in London), or have not got as many grey cells as Hastings between them. Or both.
- The site of the most famous chess tournament ever – the 1895 Hastings Christmas Tournament, and the scene of one of the all-time classic matches: former world champion
WolfgangWilhelm Steinitz versus Curt von Bardeleben. On Black’s 25th move, von Bardeleben, in Prussian fashion, realising that the situation was lost, is said to have got up without a word, put on his hat and walked back to his hotel, leaving his clock to run down and lose on time default. I enclose this link from a Brazilian web site still raving about the game over 100 years later. I googled 295 references to this one game.
My immediate concern is to get my entry in before the late entry penalty and to find a bed and breakfast to stay in Hastings on the two nights of January 2nd and 3rd. Any advice gratefully accepted.
After that it will be time to prepare some tactical plays for the tournament itself: and exhausting schedule of one match ending on Friday night at 11pm, then three matches on Saturday running from 9.30am to 11pm pm, and another two matches on Sunday that I haven’t even begun to worry about.
No kidding: I shall be doing some weight training over the next few weeks just to help with my stamina. (I can hear Adriana sniggering already) I shall also be re-freshing my familiarity with a few opening sequences. My nightmare would be a repeat of a 1995 match in Mill Hill against the then London under 8 year old champion, a certain David Ho. My favourite win posted online to date is this one, a tough positional game against a Minnesota amateur.
My marauding ancestors too. Dodge is a Norman name (meaning breast). Nice place Hastings.
I thought Norman Conquest was the Stalinist half brother of Robert Conquest and that the two haven’t spoken in years.
Bit disappointed that von Bardeleben merely walked back to his hotel. After your dramatic introduction I was expecting him to walk into the sea never to be seen again, at the very least.
**WARNING ANAL RETENTIVE ALERT **
The Normans actually landed at Penvensey in Sussex in the September of 1066. At the time Harold’s army was trudging back from defeating a Norwegian invasion at the battle of Stamford Bridge. When his forces finally met the Normans it was well into October and the battle took place in what is now, somewhat helpfully, called Battle, which is some 7 or 8 miles north of Hastings.
What is amazing to us, well me anyway, today is the Normans where on shore for a whole month before the battle took place. Heck they even managed to build a castle in Pevensey in that time!
I had always assumed that the Normans had to perform a D-Day style landing under fire. Now I know differently its obvious but that’s what happens when one is exposed to war images beamed around the planet by satellite in real time.
Anyway this is me, a month and a half ago, stood on the very spot where Harold copped it. (Assuming that is what actually happened – isn’t there some doubt now?)
11th Century “Asylum seekers”?
You mean they were being persecuted in their native Normandy? They came over here looking for jobs? Did they apply for Housing Benefit and Education vouchers? Did the Saxons have a Refugee Council to represent their interests?
Good grief, this is whole slab of English history that I have sadly neglected to learn.
Maybe they came for the Hastings Chess Congress of 1066 and Harold just missunderstood them ?
They came for housing benefit and took over the whole d*** shop!
Antoine,
Sorry to spike your nationalist fervour but, surely, the Battle of Hastings was the most decisive result between the three, not two countries. William’s lot originated in Norway, like the good people of Penrith. It’s said that genetically no trace of them survives among the modern and perfectly Gallic denizens of Normandy, which is very odd. Perhaps they all came here and have been living – like Perry, no doubt – in draughty stone piles, speaking terribly porsh and marrying one another.
That being so I expect Harold would be quite pleased to see the end of the hereditary peers at Westminster. Don’t know what he’d make of Mr Abramovic’s Stamford Bridge, though.
I lived in Hastings (well, St Leonards, ekchew’lly) for about a decade and played in the Hastings Christmas tournament twice: Dummy Division. It was so cold both times I played in gloves.
When my wife once asked me, “But what did the battle of Hastings MEAN? What was different afterwords?”, the look of horror on her face when I replied “That you had to speak Old French to the govt. for the next 200 years” was priceless.
“Wolfgang Steinitz versus Curt von Bardeleben. On Black’s 25th move, von Bardeleben, in Prussian fashion, realising that the situation was lost, is said to have got up without a word, put on his hat and walked back to his hotel, leaving his clock to run down and lose on time default.”
Well, in all the 295 references to this game, you might have noticed that Steintitz‘s name is Wilhelm, or William.
There a story about that game whereas Baron von Bardeleben left a note, while Steinitz was away from the table, saying “Saw it, went home.”
Dear Sir(s)
I have briefly visited this homepage and would like to make a small correction at one detail: you mentioned that Curt von Bardeleben’s opponent was Wolfgang Steinitz (sorry, it’s Wilhelm Steinitz).
I am a chess history enthusiast and always study it to give better informations to my pupils (I work at a public school in Brasília, in which I give chess among other subjects).
Sincerely yours
Marcelo Bruno Rodrigues