Students from four secondary schools across the island will be moving their pieces on the draughts board in hopes of winning the team title during the second edition of the Secondary School Draughts Championship which starts on Tuesday.
And some will also be hoping to defeat last year’s champion Gabriel Clarke of Grantley Adams Memorial who will be back to defend his title in the individual competition.
During an interview with NATIONSPORT, event coordinator Glyne Howell said the competition, which will run until June 29, was the fruits of a programme he and assistant coordinator and chief referee Wynell Neverson had been labouring on for the past two years.
“We have been working within some secondary schools coaching students in draughts. The schools we are working with at the moment are Deighton Griffith Secondary, Parkinson Memorial, St George Secondary and Grantley Adams Memorial. So far the response has been good; at Parkinson there are 28 students in the group and that is just one school,” he said.
Clarke, whose retail company Nine 14 Supplies is the main sponsor, pointed out that although the tournament currently involved four schools he believed it was likely to grow into a major competition since other schools had been showing interest in participating.
“It is something that is growing. Last year there were three schools involved and this year there are five. [One student from the Alleyne School will compete in the individual segment]. We are hoping that next year more schools come on board.
“We are also hoping that in time persons will come out and see what we are doing, and we can host it on a bigger scale. Since each of the schools will be entering 12 students and Alleyne one, there will almost be 50 students participating in the competition,” Howell said.
The team segment is an addition to the competition since it began an individual competition.
The team phase will be played over a two-day period beginning at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow at the Deighton Griffith Secondary School and wrap up the following day at the same venue with 10 a.m. as the starting time.
The individual competition gets off on Thursday.
Assistant coordinator and chief referee Wynell Neverson explained that they conducted sessions at the schools throughout the course of the week.
“We go to Deighton Griffith on Tuesdays; we go to Parkinson on Wednesdays, St George on Fridays from morning and Grantley Adams that same day from 1:30 to 3 p.m. and we were working with the schools for two years from September 2016,” she said. (RG)
