Vestigia....nulla retrorsum.

As we approach the end of the school summer holidays and the start of the new season it is interesting to take stock of how far Chess In Schools has come in its first year.
Starting in Sept 2007 schools rapidly signed up to chess courses for their pupils, followed quickly by the creation of the County Squad for juniors and the development of under 9's and an under 11's county teams.
Many competitions followed throughout the season for both individuals and our teams.
As our first season it was quite a baptism of fire....many of our players were thrown in at the deep end with none or little experience of the expected standard of play or competition.
Where as some juniors with less courage and determination would have fell by the wayside or looked for another faster rewarding pastime i must give credit to the resolve and hard work of our county squad juniors. Their desire to improve and attention in our training sessions started to reap rewards towards the end of our first season.
The last leg of the East Midlands Grand Prix in Notts saw many of our players scoring wins that would have been wishful thinking at the beginning of the season. And what a better way to end the season than have a large number of Leicestershire players not only reaching the Gigafinal stage in Manchester of the UK Chess Challenge but also many of them scoring over 50% of the available points, and several winning their sections and qualifying for the final Terrafinal stage.
It has been a tough first season but with obvious progress and rewards duly received at the end. Personally it has been a pleasure to teach such positive, well behaved and enthusiastic children who come to county training, they are a credit to the county, and i am looking forward to us moving forward into the new season.