J.A.Crump
J. Anthony Crump 2005
I first met Tony when I started work at Joseph Lucas at Great King Street, nearly 50 years ago, and joined the Lucas Chess Club. Tony was club secretary and quickly made me feel at ease by playing me and letting me win. Club members in those days included Laurie Wheatley, Pete Jones, Tony Brown, George Powell, Dave Price, Tony Harris and others whose names I have forgotten. I soon found out that Tony was not the worlds strongest player but had a love of the game second to none. His strength was in helping to make the organisation of chess run as smoothly as possible. As well as being club secretary he ran the Lucas inter-company postal chess competition, was a member of the Lucas sports and Social committee and organised chess events at the Lucas sports day. He helped organise and run the Sandwell congress, was a member of the Black Country Olympic committee and ran the BDCL team lightning tournament as wells the WDCL Rock Cup and Bidgood competitions.
Tony served on so many committees it is impossible to name or even remember them. When our club was going through a difficult period it was Tony who was largely responsible for holding us together. I worked with Tony as the club chairman and his assistant secretary for more than 30 years and in spite of my sometimes dogmatic attitude we never fell out. His failing health in the last years of his life did not stop him from attending the club even though sometimes Tony and Dorothy had to reply on public transport.
Our club and chess generally will be all the poorer without Tony and Dot and I for one will miss them greatly.