Sandy Cordon 1926 - 2016 - Bedford Chess Club

The funeral of Sandy Cordon, who died on Christmas Day 2016, will take place at 10am at the Bedford Crematorium on Friday 13 January.

Following his death, Peter Gill wrote to Sandy’s daughter including comments from other members who had known him well. This is reproduced in full below:-

Dear Heather

I am writing to you as secretary of the Bedford Chess Club

I know that our Chairman Paul Habershon has written to you about Sandy’s huge contribution to chess both locally (particularly in Bedfordshire schools) and nationally and you may be interested in an item he posted in the English Chess Forum which can be found at http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=8852

However we have agreed that I should write on behalf of the Chess Club. There are still quite a number of us, including myself, who remember him very well. He was the life and soul of it for many years. If he was around (and he usually was) newcomers to the club were invariably made to feel at home, and he ensured that players not engaged in pre-arranged matches were always able to find an opponent. Often he would spend a large part of the evening playing newcomers, even though they were almost always not really strong enough to give him real opposition.

I have not been able to establish exactly when he joined, but Nigel Staddon, who joined at the beginning of the 1960s, recalls he was already well established then. I’m not entirely sure when or why he left but I think perhaps by the 1990s he no longer enjoyed serious games played over several hours, felt he could no longer play at the level he demands of himself, and preferred to play table tennis. Not all that long ago (perhaps 5 or 6 years) I was surprised to receive a call from him. It was Easter, the table tennis club was not meeting, and he wondered if he could play a few games with us. I think that was the last time he came to the club but I know he has until quite recently played regularly with a lunch time group organised by one of our current members Tony Lawrence.

When I joined in 1973 he was a very strong player, and indeed (though he would deny it) he was still strong when he left. However I remember him telling me that in his first two years he lost (almost?) all his games. I have often mentioned that to players who join the club after success in domestic chess and find the standard at the club daunting at first.

Several current members remember him very well and with respect and affection. All local players are aware of him because we play annually for a Trophy named in his honour: all the Clubs in the Beds league (which includes Northampton, Milton Keynes and the Open University Chess Clubs) compete for the Cordon Trophy in a quickplay tournament played at the beginning of each season.

Many members have expressed their sadness at Sandy’s passing. I am attaching two particular messages which may be of interest.

Would you be kind enough to share this message with any other family members who would be interested?

I will be attending the funeral to represent the Club.

With very best wishes and sympathy

Peter Gill

From Richard Bodily
I’ve researched some very old records as i thought that i might have played him and i did in a Daventry v Bedford National club match in 1975! I had been playing chess about 3 years and was 15 but nowhere near as strong as Sandy who i think was over 170. I remember even now being very grateful that he gave me a draw in a slightly better position for him. I do still have the game but it is fairly tedious…. Sad person that i am i think i can even remember the match score which was a Bedford win of 4.5-1.5.

From Neil Hickman
I don’t know when Sandy joined, or left, the club. I suspect there is some information about this and about much else in the box of old club records that I have been meaning to work through at some stage.
I made Sandy’s acquaintance in 1973. The club was then meeting in premises in Ashburnham Road. I was then living in Gibbons Road, just round the corner, and wandered along on the strength of a poster which had been displayed in Pembertons bookshop (it showed a fairly straightforward endgame problem and suggested that if you could solve it, Bedford Chess Club was the place for you). Sandy made a bee-line for me and we played a couple of games.
I won both of them; but looking back I am quite certain that Sandy was deliberately offering me the opportunities to win, but only if I was good enough to see those opportunities. Very typical Sandy in several respects; firstly that a new visitor was going to be collared instantly and sat down at the board, rather than being allowed to hang around feeling conspicuous and unwelcome; secondly that he wanted to check that new visitor out for future reference, and that was far more important to him than just winning a game; also that he was a sufficiently strong player that he could deliberately offer his opponent chances without just “throwing” the game.
A little while later, Sandy was running a lightning competition. I wandered over to report the result of my game against Valentin Maluga. “He beat you, then” said Sandy, without looking up. “Yes, he did. How did you know?” “He said ‘Well played!'”
He was very much of the old school; absolutely as straight as a die, with no hint of gamesmanship or poor sportsmanship. While he came across as gruff, this was, I think, largely an act. He had a good line in deadpan humour, as the wry comment about friend Maluga demonstrated.
He was passionate about the future of the game; Mark McCready quotes an observation by Paul Habershon:
“Another important aspect of the 1970s was the Bedford Middle Schools Chess League, organised by W. A. (Sandy) Cordon, Deputy Head at Stewartby School. He used to have 100 children in his lunchtime chess club…”
Just imagine these days getting 100 schoolchildren to be interested in anything. I suspect Sandy was the sort of old-school (sorry) teacher of whom the children were slightly in awe but who they respected tremendously.
It’s good that he will continnue to be remembered by the annual Cordon Trophy competition; it would also be good if anyone had any of his games. I have some old score books but not, I think, going back quite that far and I don’t think I ever played him in a serious game.