After a busy summer for many members, honing their skills: some competing in the Summer Tournemant, others attending the excellent UCU Master Classes - Thursday evening clubs nights have begun again and a new League season beckons.
This year we expect to field 3 teams again in the UCU League and hope to see the return of a few familiar faces - Alan McConnell and Mike McKimm - absent last year. These are exciting times for Chess in Ulster and our Bangor Club continues to be one of the foremost clubs in the province with expectations high for competition honours in new season.

Club Nights

Bangor Chess Club meetings are on Thursday evenings from about 7:00pm till late.  Adult members usually arrive from 7:30 onwards with league games scheduled to start at 8:00.

Venue

Groomsport Parish Hall

Main Street
Groomsport

During the past couple of years, the club has continued to grow. We also hope to build on various initiatives in previous years and organise regular training and peer-review sessions.

Teams for this year are all expected to challenge strongly for their respective division titles.

• Carnegie division 1 - despite a faltering start last season, Carnegie finished strongly challenging right up to the final match for the Division title; expectations are high that a good start will gain the title this year
  
• Winston division 2 - maintained a strong challenge throughout last season despite coming in as Bangor's under-dogs; leading the Division for most of the year, they were finally pushed off the top spot by a strong RVH team going for promotion
  
• Groomsport division 2 - initially failed to live up to their reputation losing heavily twice to rivals Barracudas but made a startling recovery at the end of the season; with the benefit of a conceded match against Portadown finally joined the Barracudas at the top of the Division just behind RVH
  

This year, the Ulster Chess Union will be providing the results service for League and Weekend competitions. Instead we will bring you more detailed reports on team and member performances in competition - supplemented by weekly reports in the County Down Spectator.