Born 1934
Has been club president since September 1999.
Winner of the club championship in 1994 and 2001. Joint winner in 1995 and 1996.
Bernard Cafferty, born Blackburn 27/Jun/1934, was British Boys' Champion in 1952 and British Junior Champion 1954. He was British CC Champion in 1960 and won the British Lightning Championships (ten-seconds-a-move, played on the buzzer) five times in the period 1964-69. Played top board for Warwickshire in the Counties Final of 1961 when the WCA team beat Yorkshire. However, he played little county chess and, as both a Lancastrian and a trained geographer, always felt unhappy about Gtr Manchester CA being part of the Midlands. Took part in every British Championship 1957-70, beating the likes of Clarke, Milner-Barry and Abrahams on his debut.
Awarded the FIDE Master title in 1982, for results in international play in the 1970s, including the Birmingham Easter invitational internationals financed and organised by W. Ritson Morry.
Bernard writes [24/Apr/2000]: "I made my debut in the Birmingham and District League in September 1951, playing initially in Division Two for Birmingham University, but soon making the first team which featured such players as the late Peter Oakley and Brian Dudley. I last played in it in December 1980, before going down to Hastings later in the same month in order to start my new job of editing the British Chess Magazine. This involved a break from serious play throughout the period 1981-92, after which I retired from the BCM post. I stayed on in Hastings when the BCM moved to London and now visit the Hastings Chess Club nearly every afternoon to play and browse in its fine library. Thus, I am able to repeat the experience I had of regular exposure to chess in my days at the Birmingham and Midland Institute at Paradise Street and then in Margaret Street in the 1950s and 1960s. I was Sussex Champion in 1996, but can't claim to play as well now as in my early Birmingham days, nor do I meet such strong opposition as was the case then."
"I was a schoolmaster at St Phillip's GS, just by the Ivy Bush, 1961-70. I taught Russian there 1964-70. The subject petered out in the late 60s due to the effect of the 'Brezhnev Doctrine,' so I became a free-lance translator and writer in 1970. I produced translations of Botvinnik's best games 1947-70 (and later of his autobiography Achieving the Aim) as well as collections of the best games of Tal and Spassky. I also translated Kotov's Think Like a GM, a book which people say had a beneficial effect on British chess."
Below is a game from the 1996 Hastings Club Championship
