Club History

Eric Dudley, the landlord of the King’s Head in Church Street, Nuneaton, provided his customers with a chess set. Soon a group of people could be found playing chess most days in the snug at the inn. 

It’s not clear who first had the idea of forming a chess club, but it was Alf Clews who put adverts into the local newspaper asking if anyone was interested in forming a club. This led to 14 people attending a meeting and founding the Nuneaton Chess Club.

It was decided to try and enter teams into the Coventry Chess League. To the surprise of many of the club’s members, the A team was placed into the 2nd division and the other teams placed in the 4th division. The first team finished 2nd in Division 2 and so gained promotion to the 1st division.

After some early struggles it has remained in that division, becoming the most succesful team in the long history of the League – winning the championship again in 2004-5.

Eric Dudley presented the club with a splendid trophy known as the ‘Eric Dudley Trophy’. It was for an annual individual competition and was open to all of the Nuneaton area. After almost 50 years, the Nuneaton Open is still very keenly contested.