Alan Perkins 1949-2025

Alan Perkins at the board (2024)

This is to share the sad news that Alan Perkins, our A team regular, has died.

Alan, originally from Yorkshire, was one of England’s strongest juniors in the 1960’s, jointly winning the 1965 British Under-16 Championship. In 1968 he made his debut in the British Championship proper, scoring 6½/11 to finish in a tie for 7th place. He played for England in the Student Olympiads of 1970 (where the England team took the silver medals just behind the USA) and 1972. Here’s an impressive win from Alan at the age of 18:

John Quinn writes: I first met Alan when I played against him in the British Championship in 1973. I got to know him better when he joined the department that I worked in at British Airways, a few years later. Post Covid, Alan and I would meet every 2-3 weeks to spend a couple of hours going over either our games or recent games by strong GMs. Alan was a strong player, IM strength or just below that at his peak. In 1975 he had a grade of 216 which put him ahead of Jon Speelman for example who was graded 215. I suspect Alan’s grade may have been higher in the late 60s or early 70s but I don’t have that data.

In my view, Alan’s style was largely positional and he was great at punishing players who ended up with cramped, passive positions. He could also play attractive combinations and is the only person playing for Ealing that I know who played a successful classic double bishop sacrifice with Bxh7+ followed by Bxg7 in a local league match. Alan was very approachable and happy to discuss games and look for improvements. At times in his desire to improve he was quite critical of his own play; for example when analysing the game he recently won against Rick (see below), he was at pains to point out how, at a couple of moves, he had not played an even stronger knight manoeuvre than the line he chose.

Alan was a captain’s dream, a regular playing every Ealing A team match (on one of the top few boards) in the Thames Valley and Middlesex leagues over the last 3 years, after a break for the pandemic, and ended last season on a high with a number of wins against strong opposition, such as that game above, his rating rising back up to 2172, very impressive at the age of 76.

Alan was a lifelong supporter of Leeds United and loved cricket, supporting Yorkshire and England, and if John remembers correctly, went on at least one tour of the West Indies back in the day when they were a strong side and would give England a hard time. Craig Pritchett wrote: “I do recall he loved Yorkshire cricket and was a great fan of Geoff Boycott, whose robust, no-nonsense batting style and record, he once defended, I believe, in a letter to ‘Chess’.”

Alan was a good friend and will be missed.

Further tributes and anecdotes about Alan can be found at the English Chess Forum here

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