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1959 Great Britain v Netherlands, 24-25 October 1959, Cheltenham

Bd	Great Britain	Rd 1	Rd 2	Netherlands
1w	Jonathan Penrose	½-½	½-½	Dr Max Euwe
2b	Peter H Clarke	0-1	½-½	Jan Hein Donner
3w	C Hugh O'D Alexander	½-½	½-½	Hans Bouwmeester
4b	Leonard W Barden	½-½	½-½	Nicolaas Cortlever
5w	Michael J Haygarth	0-1	½-½	Theo D van Scheltinga
6b	Robert G Wade	½-½	½-½	Haije Kramer
7w	P Stuart Milner-Barry	½-½	½-½	Carel B van den Berg
8b	Bernard Cafferty	0-1	½-½	Johan Teunis Barendregt
9w	Denis Victor Mardle	½-½	0-1	Eduard Spanjaard
10b	John E Littlewood	½-½	0-1	Frits Ernst Roessel
	24-25 October 1959	3½-6½	4-6
	Cheltenham	7½-12½

BCM, November 1959, ppn 317-318

The Anglo-Dutch Match

Bv P. H. CLARKE

On October 24th and 25th, a year practically to the day since their last encounter at Flushing [Vlissingen], teams representing England and Holland met to play a double-round match. The result was a victory for the Dutch team by 12½-7½. The venue was Cheltenham, at the premises of Dowty Group Ltd., an engineering firm which has business contacts with Holland. By so generously financing and sponsoring this event the Dowty Group Ltd. has undoubtedly performed a great service for British chess. For without this help it is unlikely that the British Chess Federation could have invited the Dutch team here, and thus there would have been considerable danger of this valuable and pleasant event once again falling into abeyance. Now, however, it seems more firmly established than ever before, since judging from the words of Sir George Dowty at the final banquet we may confidently look forward to a similar event there in two years time; in the meantime we hope to be the guests of the Royal Dutch Chess Federation next year.

The organization of the match reached a very high standard and was a great credit to the members of the Dowty Chess Club and in particular Mr. Pitt. Not only were the players well accommodated but the spectators, too, were given every consideration. In addition to being able to watch the games closely (sometimes they came a bit too near!), they could in an adjoining room follow the most interesting of them on demonstration boards as they were discussed by experts such as Dr. J. M. Aitken, W. Ritson Morry, and B. H. Wood.

The teams were not quite at full strength: Prins was a noticeable absentee from the Dutch side, while we lacked Golombek, who was away in Yugoslavia in his capacity as chief judge at the Candidates' Tournament. In his absence Milner-Barry, who has played in every one of these matches, took over the captaincy; the Dutch team was led by van Donk. Since last year's match had been very exciting and only narrowly won by Holland, the result of this year's was eagerly anticipated. However, I think it is fair to say that the Dutch were generally regarded as favourites: they were all very experienced players (their bottom board played at Munich), while in the English side there were several new or practically new to international representative chess.

The first round confirmed the impression of the all-round strength of our visitors in as much they won three games and drew the rest. On Board 2, Donner, a recent addition to the family of grandmasters, exploited an error of mine in fine style, concluding the game with a powerful attack; on Board 5, Haygarth early became saddled with a weak pawn at Q 4, and this proved his downfall in the end; and on Board 8, Cafferty was soon in difficulties from which he was unable to extricate himself.

Both Mardle and Littlewood, who were making their debuts for England, gained comfortable draws, which was encouraging; especially so in Littlewood's case, for his opponent won both his games last year. On Boards 4 and 6 the games were comparatively uneventful. Milner-Barry's game had several interesting moments before an equal ending was reached, while the battle between Alexander and Bouwmeester was full of fluctuations. The British master recovered in typical fashion from a rather dubious opening and proceeded to gain an advantage; but then it was his opponent's turn to show his ingenuity, which he did by sacrificing a pawn for counter-play. The last game to finish was on top board, where Penrose did very well to hold on after getting slightly the worst of it; in a double-rook ending he was handicapped by having several weak pawns, but in spite of severe time-trouble he defended the position with great accuracy, and at the end of the session Dr. Euwe recognized that his advantage was insufficient.

Remembering what had happened at Flushing (the Dutch were 3½-6½ down after the first round there, but finally won), we were not too disheartened and in fact generally put up a better resistance the next day. Even so, it was not wins that were coming our way but draws. Penrose again showed skill in defence and thoroughly deserved his even score with the ex-World Champion. I played better than in the first round and, although my opponent was able to work up some initiative, he was unable to retain it for long. The game on Board 3 was again a sharp struggle and once again neither player was able to show a clear superiority With Barden, Wade, Cafferty, and Milner-Barry also drawing (the latter after a hard defence), the match was virtually lost, but there were still prospects of winning the round. It was true that Littlewood seemed sure to lose, for he was a piece down and had been for a long time all the same he was putting up, and continued to do so, a remarkably resourceful fight. But it was on the other two games that our hopes rested; Mardle had a strong King's-side attack and Haygarth some positional advantage.

As the end of the session approached, the games came to a crisis. Suddenly Spanjaard found a combinational resource which changed the whole complexion of the game, and before long it was he who had won by a mating attack. So the last chance of a British win lay with Haygarth, and, indeed, this began to look assured; he gradually out-manoeuvred his opponent by excellent play, and at last van Scheltinga, who was short of time, lost a pawn. There were still some technical difficulties to overcome when Haygarth in his eagerness to finish the game threw everything away by a careless move, thus allowing van Scheltinga to escape with a perpetual check. Shortly afterwards the bottom-board game was called off, and later on resigned by Littlewood. So the Dutch won again and in so doing retained the challenge trophy, the replica of the famous Dutch warship, Admiral de Ruyter's "Seven Provinces." While their success was thoroughly deserved, for us it was disappointing, the more so because we failed to win a single game. But at the moment our team is partly in the process of being rebuilt, and therefore we can look forward to better things in the future.

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CHESS, 7 November 1959, Vol.25/351, p39

England has been badly beaten again by a country with admittedly more opportunities for this type of match but with less than a quarter of our population. Our selectors have frequently been criticised for hanging on too long to older players. This time, they brought the average age of our team down to well below that of the Dutchmen who relied on tried experience—and all our losses were scored by the youngsters!

The final score, reading five wins, fifteen draws for Holland, reveals that England failed to win a single game out of twenty.

Donner struck first blow when he strafed one weak move by Clarke so mercilessly as to have a clearly won game by the twentieth move. Mardle and Spanjaard "mixed it" like the enterprising players they are. Mardle was lucky to emerge from a horrible position in the first round, and hold a draw (but we are still wondering why he did not, towards the end, try to win). He was unlucky, in the return, to run into the most brilliant move of the event.

Haygarth, in the nineteenth game to finish, looked like scoring our solitary win. With queen, a good knight and four pawns against Van Scheitinga's queen, bad bishop and three, he certainly should have won but allowed a perpetual check.

Along with the failure of our younger generation, another factor which cost the match was the apparent feeling among the more experienced hands that they had done their duty if they had scored 50%. One agreed a draw when his opponent had yet to make fourteen moves in three minutes. There was a conspicuous absence of the attacking spirit that brought Broadbent his amazing run of success in earlier matches of this series. Alexander at board three was a shadow of the player who, at first board not so long ago, went for Euwe like a tiger.

So when our players got a good game, they drew. When they got a bad one, they lost. That was the story.

Two people on our side emerged from the affair with distinction: Sir George Dowty, head of Dowty Equipment, patron, and A. R. Pitt, his henchman who, though famous for long in Gloucestershire as a first-class county secretary, made his name overnight in the international field. His organisation was superb. The first international match at Cheltenham, this, we feel, will not be the last.

Dr. Aitken and your editor demonstrated the games to spectators, among them Herr Brat, Dutch Consul-general and a keen player who came down specially from London. We had last seen him at the British v Dutch Universities' match three years ago.

The trophy is a beautiful model in silver of de Reuter's flag ship which, in the seventeenth century, sailed up the Medway and burnt several English ships before retiring. V. J. Soanes, the B.C.F. chairman, observed in his speech at the banquet that, as the Royal Navy had not been able to capture the ship, he did not think the English chess team could be unduly blamed for failing to do so!

Incidentally, "Britain" on the plinth is mis-spelled "Brittain".

Sir George Dowty, who has had a lifelong interest in sport, revealed that at one time he had been chess champion of the Gloucester Aircraft Company, so did not feel at all out of place at such a gathering of chess talent. He said he was going to ask the Dowty Electronics Division to produce for him a miniature computer which he could carry about in his pocket to help him in his play.

Record of GB v Netherlands matches

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File Updated

Date	Notes
2 June 2024	First uploaded as a PGN file with all 20 games (all of which appeared in CHESS).
25 September 2025	Added viewer, scores and reports.